Two Very Different Takes on Credit Card Reform

The more you try to reform the broken system, the more you realize that even the process the government uses to reform the system is broken as well. President Obama signed legislation back in May of last year that forces credit card companies to not only be much more transparent about how much they’re screwing their customers, but also place caps on interest rates, ban excessive fees, and other long-overdue measures. The problem? It just went into effect last week. In the meantime, credit card companies have closed millions of accounts, cut credit lines, created new fees untouched by the new law, and jacked up interest rates right before it could take effect. So in many ways it’s actually harder now for many consumers to get credit, although now that companies must be more transparent about what you really owe, maybe that will prevent a few people from getting in over their heads. Here’s the White House’s breakdown of the law’s reform in Q&A format…

And here’s the Daily Show’s version, which is a bit more to the point…

I happen to like Stewart’s version a bit better. I appreciate what the White House is trying to do here, but they just can’t admit that they got duped almost as badly as Average Joe American did by all that fine print. Consumers don’t get a warning when their interest rates jump higher or when they get entangled in hidden fees, so why did these assholes get nine months to prepare for this? Change is clearly happening, but at a pace that’s more maddening than those fluctuating monthly bills.