President Obama had a meeting a few days ago with the leaders of the credit card industry, and gave them a clear declaration: Stop the exploitation of America’s consumers, an action long overdue.
Credit card abuse has been and remains a major problem, victimizing millions of American consumers, with short pay periods, sudden rise in interest rates, and all kinds of excuses to impose fees, even when a consumer pays the entire bill. Millions of young Americans have been coaxed over the years to look at plastic as if it is a gift, and then ruining their credit histories for the long run by building up horrendous debt levels they cannot pay.
During the Bush Administration, creditors and the credit card industry received unfair advantages, including making it more difficult for debtors to declare bankruptcy. Now the trend is toward helping debtors and cracking down on the abuses so obvious in the credit card business that have made many middle class people fall into the lower middle or even the poorer class of society. Regulation is now in the offing, something that was allowed to collapse during the years of the GOP in charge of Congress and the White House. To say the least, long overdue and essential to occur as soon as possible!