IMO, Himes needs to do everything he can to fight this stereotype. But his recent Firedog liveblog didn’t help fight this image. Supportive bloggers who seemed knowledgable challenged the notion that the Federal Reserve Corporation is capable of overcoming its institutional arrogance toward regulators and thus will fail miserably if given the challenge.

Tim, could you give me link to this. I would be curious to read Mr. Himes’s comments on the Federal Reserve.

30% interest is friggin’ un-American.

As ACR said, who’s charging that rate, and even if some bank is charging that much, how is it un-American?

Whatever the reasons though, it sounds like Congress may actually question, if not challenge, the Fed.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ainh3qdHJuoM&refer=home

But then that may lead to a discussion on the morality of fractional reserve banking and probably will raise questions about the existence of The Federal Reserve.

I’m guessing that conversation won’t happen. I’d love to see Dodd begin the national dialogue though.

ACR, have you ever heard of a VISA debit card?

Debit cards have their use I guess, but I still greatly prefer using a credit card over a debit card.

Debit cards are terrible for car rentals or hotel reservations: those companies grab a block of money in case of overages. If you have a credit card, you never really see this, but with a debit card, that comes straight out of your bank account.

I always pay the balance at the end of the month, but I love the convenience of only having to pay the credit card companies once a month. My checking account isn’t getting hit constantly with fees, and I can make big charges and then worry about moving the money into my checking account. When I was self employed, I could charge a lot of business expenses on my card, and get paid by the client before the credit card bill was due. This was huge, as I didn’t have to front the money myself.

That said, I think there are certainly some abuses on the part of the credit card industry. I don’t think the high interest rates are necessarily a bad thing, though: I think suddenly raising the rate, especially for people who are current on that account, is somewhat heavy handed. I think some of the fees that the credit card companies charge are a bit over the top.

If a credit card company advertises that it has 24% interest rate, and someone signs up, well, I certainly don’t think there needs to be a law against that.

However, if someone signs up for an 11% credit card, makes the payments, but misses some other payment, then has their rate jacked to 30%, that’s harder to defend. I understand where the CC companies are coming from in theory: new information reveals that persion is a greater credit risk, and thus the CC company needs to be compensated for the extra risk. However, I think a lot of CC companies use this as an excuse to raise rates, probably with the customer not knowing for a while.

One problem that regulation seems to have brought is that the CC companies have to send all this crap in the mail. Seriously, how many people in the USA have ever read a privacy statement brochure all the way through? And then you get a change notice in the mail from a credit card company about some change in one of the terms. (I have a bunch of credit cards, and they almost never tell you which credit card it is, like the LL Bean Visa or Shell Mastercard, it’s just the #. So most of the time, I don’t know what credit card they’re talking about.).

So please, Sen. Dodd, don’t make them send me more paper to my house. Especially those small envelopes with densely packed text that I’m never ever going to read.

30% interest is friggin’ un-American.

Who’s charging that?

I don’t want to call you an old fart, but VISA check cards have been around since the 1990’s.

And I’m amazed that you Republicans would take the side of the credit card companies.

30% interest is friggin’ un-American.

The result may be no one with a credit score below 650 or so could get a card, ever.

So darn everyone who gets cleaned up (and cleaned out!) in a divorce will be unable to travel by air or rent a car.

Perfect!

I definitely agree with you that the coverage has been incredibly biased against him. To read the papers and to watch the news, you’d think that Dodd wasn’t doing anything but campaigning, when in fact he’s had an incredibly busy past three months.

The problem for Dodd, as I see it, is the press coverage.

What he has been up to the last three months and longer has now been exposed. I think he figured no one would catch on. Heck, no one has for what, 30 years? He was almost right.

Considering his donors; do honestly think he intends to do a darn thing?

I think Dodd probably thinks there’s more gold in going after the cc companies than not, despite his donor base. I’d expect him to go overboard on cc regulations to prove his independence from these companies. The result may be no one with a credit score below 650 or so could get a card, ever.

I look forward to the coming credit card reforms, and I hope Dodd will have enough votes to cap interest rates.

Considering his donors; do honestly think he intends to do a darn thing?

In terms of press coverage, I think your current gloating just put in a bottom for Senator Dodd.

I definitely agree with you that the coverage has been incredibly biased against him. To read the papers and to watch the news, you’d think that Dodd wasn’t doing anything but campaigning, when in fact he’s had an incredibly busy past three months.

I look forward to the coming credit card reforms, and I hope Dodd will have enough votes to cap interest rates.

Since he announced for President?

“Committees that govern Wall Street and banking are considered cash-cow committees,” said Sheila Krumholz, director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan Washington research group. “Landing a seat on this committee provides a way to secure easy re-election fundraising.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=a0QoxZDsHWuE&refer=home

IMO, Himes needs to do everything he can to fight this stereotype. But his recent Firedog liveblog didn’t help fight this image. Supportive bloggers who seemed knowledgable challenged the notion that the Federal Reserve Corporation is capable of overcoming its institutional arrogance toward regulators and thus will fail miserably if given the challenge.