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Notes -
It's not really the poor subsidizing the rich, as much as it is that the stupid (people who borrow money without paying it back per their agreement) "subsidize" the smart (and even the smart in general are likely profitable in some way or else why would the CC companies have them at all?)
The main reason for the poor/smart divide here would be that dumb people tend to be poorer and vice versa that poorer people tend to be dumber. They're bad with money. Of course some rich can be dumb and some poor can be smart, but it is a general trend.
Really, many of these dumbasses are quite lucky in some way because if they had stolen the money they aren't paying back, their ass would be in jail or dead. Instead, as per the agreements, they just have to pay fees and interest on the amount they refuse to return. If the goal is to stop idiots from being allowed to borrow money they can't pay back, then it would be more direct to just bar lending entirely to dumb heavy categories like high school dropouts, low credit scores, manual laborers, etc.
At the end of the day credit card companies know how to make money. They probably make money off of people like you and I by charging merchants fees, they make money off of financially illiterate people by selling debt to collections agencies, and the median American somewhere in between.
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