Earlier this year, the same corporate/DLC Democrats who have been calling the shots on alleged healthcare reform similarly shepherded though Congress and allged credit card reform bill.  The bill was touted as finally protecting consumers from the worst practices of credit card issuers (mostly the same corrupt bank/bankers that tanked the economy to begin with).  But the careful observer during the legislative process this spring would have noted that the new "reforms" didn't kick in until 2010 giving plenty of time for the bad actors to make sure that they got every bad practice they could in under the deadline and thus, grandfathered and they also carefully crafted the bill to make sure there were vast loopholes allowing them to institute new predatory, deceptive and dishonest lending practices even under the new legislation thus protecting their ability to rape and pillage the naive consumer just as before.

Some defenders of the new President have denied this and even proudly trumpeted "credit card reform" as one of his "accomplishments" in his first year.  They ignored the reporting of the convenient timeline and loopholes and have, liked the Obama team's people tried to focus attention on what the new bill prohibits without acknowledging that they knew all along that the industry was going to relentlessly exploit the loopholes and continue screwing millions of Americans who now sadly depend upon credit cards to keep their homes and families together.

So, next time you hear someone touting the great achievement of "credit card reform" the Democrats "won" for us, don't buy it.  What they stopped in one form they are allowing in a plethora of others.  It's a classic fraud on the public and none of us should let any group of politicians get away with such cheap deceptions.  I think it's particularly important not to let Democrats get away with it.  This bill clearly demonstrates how corrupt our system of govenrment has become with Democrats being beholden to the same unethical corporate interests as the Republicans.  And when considering the effects of this credit card industry endorsed legislation on the public, give some thought to just how good a deal we're likely to get from the same crowd who continue to tout the corporate "healthcare reform" bill they plan to foist on the American public in the coming weeks.  Is this change at all let alone the sort of change any of us voted for last year?  I think not.

There is an article on yahoo finance entitled: "Creative New Fees Escape CARD Act Rules, Surprise Consumers" that outlines some of these gaping loopholes. I thought others might be interested in it.  You can find it at:

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/108488/credit-new-fees-escape-card-act-rules-surprise-consumers?mod=bb-creditcards

The article references a report by the Center for Responsible Lending that goes into greater detail on the subject.  You can find the report at:

http://www.responsiblelending.org/credit-cards/research-analysis/CRL-Dodging-Reform-Report-12-10-09.pdf