‘They’re Absolute Hogwash’: Ramsey Blacklists AmEx, a Stock Up 470% in 10 Years
Dave Ramsey named three financial companies he personally refuses to touch, and one of them has quietly turned into a 470% stock winner over the last decade. Whether his blacklist is wisdom or a grudge depends entirely on one number…
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On the September 2, 2026 Ramsey Show, Dave Ramsey told a 64-year-old caller carrying $20,000 in credit card debt that he personally refuses to do business with three financial companies. “I don’t want anything to do with American Express…They’re absolute hogwash. I don’t want anything to do with SunTrust Financial. I don’t want anything to do with Fifth Third, ever, period.” He traced the grudge to his own bankruptcy: “I’m still, 40 years later, mad at bankers.”
The caller, Carlos, is a New York City security guard earning about $55,000 a year, with $12,000 owed to the IRS, $40,000 in a TIAA-CREF account, and a fresh prostate cancer diagnosis. For a reader in Carlos’s position, following Ramsey’s blanket boycott versus chasing points is not a philosophical debate. It is a math problem with a very clear answer.
Verdict: Ramsey Is Right for Revolvers, Wrong for Payers
Rewards financed by carried balances are hogwash. Rewards paid to transactors are free money. The break-even is not close, and it is not subtle. The average credit card APR was nearly 21%, sitting in what the Federal Reserve’s own historical range calls record territory. A typical rewards card pays 1% to 5% back. Interest at 21% eats a 2% rewards rate ten times over on every dollar that rolls to the next statement.
Apply that to Carlos. A $20,000 carried balance at roughly 21% costs over $4,000 a year in interest alone. Even a generous 3% cashback card would return roughly $600 on that same $20,000 in annual spending. The rewards do not offset the interest. They do not come close. Every month the balance sits, the issuer wins and the customer funds a stock chart. American Express (NYSE:AXP | AXP Price Prediction) shares are up roughly 471% over ten years and about 113% over five, recently trading near $324. That return was financed by balances exactly like Carlos’s.
The same pattern shows up at the other two names on the blacklist. Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ:FITB) has returned roughly 274% over ten years. Truist Financial (NYSE:TFC), the successor to SunTrust, is up about 93% over ten years. Consumer credit is a good business for the lender, which is precisely why Ramsey warns borrowers away from the other side of the ledger.
One Variable Flips the Math: Do You Carry a Balance?
The single factor that decides whether rewards are “hogwash” or free money is whether your statement balance hits zero every month. There is no middle ground.
Scenario A, the transactor: spend $30,000 on the card in a year, pay it in full each cycle, earn 2% back. That is $600, tax-free, with no interest paid. AmEx still makes money on interchange, but the customer is not funding it out of pocket.
Scenario B, the revolver: same $30,000 in spend, but a $5,000 average balance rides along at nearly 21%. Interest runs over $1,000 in a year. The 2% rewards return $600. Net: the cardholder is out several hundred dollars and the issuer books the spread. Do this for a decade and the compounding shows up on someone else’s brokerage statement. The credit card delinquency rate now running near 3% is a reminder that plenty of households are in Scenario B and drifting further in.
Ramsey’s absolutist rule ignores Scenario A. But it correctly identifies that most people who tell themselves they are transactors eventually are not. AmEx’s own results back the behavior he warns about: management reported billed business of $455.80 billion in Q2 2026 and card fee growth that CEO Stephen Squeri credits to “Millennials and Gen-Zs who represent greater lifetime value.” Lifetime value, for an issuer, is a polite way of describing decades of interchange and interest.
What to Actually Do Before Your Next Statement Closes
- Run the real break-even. Pull your last 12 statements. Add total interest paid. Subtract total rewards earned. If the number is negative, the card is costing you money regardless of how good the points portal looks.
- Attack the balance before the rate. Ramsey told Carlos that saving 15% of income for eight years, combined with his existing $40,000, could get him to roughly $150,000 to $200,000 by age 70. That path only works if the 21% drag is removed first.
- Separate the tool from the trap. A rewards card cleared monthly works like a debit card with a rebate. A rewards card carried month to month works like a high-rate loan.
Ramsey’s language is blunt because his audience is people already losing the interest arbitrage. If that is you, he is right. If it is not, the math gives you permission to keep the points and skip the sermon.
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