Listen with webreader

Today the Senate passed a new credit card bill that will stop credit issuers from immediately jacking up interest rates for one missed payment. It passed 90-5, and now heads to the House, which will probably debate it for a little bit, then agree and make it law.

Why am I so blase about it? Because it doesn’t go into effect until January 2010. Really? I mean, the other credit card law goes into effect July of 2010; where’s the “now” relief?

Oh yeah, they also tacked onto this new bill another provision that allows people to carry concealed weapons into national parks. How is that related to the credit card issue?

Meanwhile, the banking industry isn’t happy, saying they’ll have to tighten restrictions and may have to drop some people. Hey, haven’t they been doing that anyway lately? You saw my post on how, at least American Express just changed my balance without any real notice, so what do they think they’re telling us that we didn’t already know?

I wasn’t happy about the first bill, and now I’m not necessarily happy about this one. They should have made it 60 days; after all, that’s all the time these banks and credit issuers give us. Maybe having it done to them will tell them what the rest of us go through. What say you?