The House just passed the “credit card reform” legislation. According to the news, this intrusive action limits increases in interest rates and prevents credit cards from being issued to minors.
Even in a world where such market interference would be desirable, it is contradictory to the rhetoric and actions of Congress and Bush/Obama. A quote from Obama:
The heart of this financial crisis is that too many banks and other financial institutions simply stopped lending money. … It is for this reason that the last administration used the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, to provide these banks with temporary financial assistance in order to get them lending again.
But the expected effect of today’s credit card legislation is to make credit tighter (at least from credit cards). Am I missing something?
3:57 pm on May 20, 2009
