Florida State Park feeding frenzy

bucky wrote:
Some of you are missing my point. I don't mind them having my money up front. I'm just saying that the collective amount from ALL of us is a huge number.
I pay my bills every month, so all my cards are zero interest.
As to how a business runs I'm pretty well versed.
Thanks for sharing your input, that's what makes America great. We can agree to disagree. I'm done.

It probably is a huge amount of money, and the fees are therefore equally huge. Your zero interest credit card still costs the merchant (in this case the state) two or three percent when they process that deposit. Doesn't matter if you pay it off that month or default and never pay the bill.
When they charge you a $50.00 Deposit, they get around $48.50 put into their account. If they took in 200,000 deposits, their account would have $9,700,000 in it, but they still owe $10,000,000 that they have to apply to those reservations when the people check in. That means they have to earn $300,000 just to break even, and that doesn't include all the costs of taking and accounting for those deposits. By law, states cannot invest in things like the stock market, can't speculate by buying investment property, and can't loan out money to individuals like a loan shark at usury rates.
I just checked Florida municipal bond rates, and they are yielding around 2.75 percent. That means that Florida can borrow money for less than the cost of credit card fees. And it sure is a lot easier for Florida to issue one bond for $10,000,000 than it is for them to collect and administer 200,000 campsite deposits.
Sorry, you can believe what you wish, but the numbers will clearly show that deposits on campsites will not solve the financial crises that most states face.