Finally!

That links to websites I like section over there on the side? I actually visit some of those links from time to time. Today I hopped on over to the White House web site to see what's up and was very pleased to check out the legislation President Obama signed recently regarding the credit card industry. I had to poke around to find it but I knew it was on there somewhere because I heard it discussed on NPR this weekend. (Unfortunately I turned on the radio toward the end of the interview with a White House staffer about the new regulations and controls on the lending industry and missed a good portion of the story, including which show it was on.)

In the brief portion of the interview I caught, the staffer was very articulate and clear in explaining what the government is going to do and the consumer safeguards they are going to put in place. Things like loan terms have to be described in plain English. Changes can't be buried in 30 pages of fine print. You know, little things like that. What they will NOT do is take away personal responsibility; if you blow $2,000.00 at the mall then you should have to pay it back, to quote the example given. They talked about double billing cycles, how a banker was asked to explain it during a congressional hearing and he couldn't do it. The credit card and loan companies have been using all sorts of trickery for years and it's dragging us all down and it's about time the government put a stop to it.

You have to ask yourself, what do you think government is for? My answer is one of the primary jobs of any government should be to protect the little guy from the big guy and the bullies of the world, those who would cheat and steal and harm and take advantage wherever they can. That includes things like protecting us from terrorists and countries who would wage war against us, but it also includes things like regulating corporations who would try to defraud the public through any of a zillion different methods. Things like dumping pollution in our drinking water, selling toys with lead paint in them that we think are safe for our kids, and tricking us into signing up for credit cards at one rate then using sleight of hand to change the rate to something else. Legalized stealing is all that was, and thank goodness it's going to STOP!

Go, Obama!

PS: I tried to find the story on the NPR web site but no luck. :-P