Where's a free market when you need one?

My credit card company recently informed me that they were raising the APR on my card to 30%, and raising a bunch of other nuisance fees, and if I didn't like it, I could kindly close my account.

This wasn't a surprise; I'd heard about this on Marketplace a day or two earlier. Also, I pay off my balance in full every month, so changes in "pay up bitch" charges are background noise to me most of the time.

I'm noticing this now because this is quite clearly evil. I don't mean like people who don't use their turn signals are evil. I mean soul-blackening evil. Like lotteries, these are tools that unrepentantly greedy people use to pull money out of those with poor judgment. For people who are already deeply in debt, the best thing to do is deepen that hole for them, right?

Under most circumstances, my solution would be the nuclear option: No credit cards. Problem solved. However, while I wouldn't call credit cards in American society necessary, they are handy. They let you do things, especially online, that you couldn't get done other ways. So this needs a more tactical solution.

This morning in the shower (where the water is more innovative) I decided that we need a credit card company that isn't in business to gouge. I'm not saying you lose money. I'm just saying, somebody needs to start a credit card that isn't wildly usurous.

From a cursory examination, there's no one out there in credit cards competing on price. Right now, if I had a credit card that only charged, say, 9% interest, people would flock to use it. They would transfer balances to my dinky 9% credit card. I would still make truckloads of money, and I might not even fall that far behind the big boys.

This isn't just capitaltruism, this is smart business, catering to an unserved share of the market.