Obama Administration summons Credit Card execs to the woodshed, I mean, the White House.

[Pirate Smile]

Card Issuers Face New Scrutiny
Credit Executives Are Summoned To White House

By Nancy Trejos and Binyamin Appelbaum
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, April 17, 2009

Under pressure for questionable industry practices, top executives of 14 of the nation's largest credit card companies are heading to the White House on Thursday for a meeting with senior administration officials.
The executives plan to talk about their efforts to increase transparency and help the economy, according to an industry official and a Capitol Hill aide, both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting has not been announced.

The credit card industry has been under intense scrutiny in the past year for practices such as arbitrarily raising interest rates, charging excessive fees and giving customers little time between billing them and requiring payment.

In December, the Federal Reserve approved new rules that would ban such practices. But consumer groups and several members of Congress criticized the Fed's efforts because the new regulations don't take effect until July 1, 2010. Bills have been introduced in both the House and Senate to accelerate that timeline.

-snip-
Consumer advocates and congressional leaders said they were pleased that the Obama administration would meet with the card issuers.
"The federal government is assisting the credit card companies in two significant ways, and we would hope this meeting would focus on how the White House can get credit card companies to immediately begin these reforms," said Travis Plunkett, legislative director of the Consumer Federation of America.

"If what we hear about a White House meeting is true, it makes a lot of sense given that President Obama campaigned on credit card reforms and the Fed has already ruled that their practices are unfair and deceptive," said Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), who introduced one of the bills that aims to crack down on credit card practices.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/16/AR2009041603579.html?hpid=topnews

[ananda]

1. Translation: Obama is summoning his corporate masters to him..

.. to beg them to rein in their practices a bit.

Why.. because so many people are up in arms and
there is, ostensibly or supposedly, a need to
consider the voting populace and the mood of
the country here.

However, if the Obama admin and Congress were
really serious about helping people, laws
and rules would have already been enacted
to regulate the industry.

[Pirate Smile]

3. Pathetic.

[vaberella]

4. F**K! I need a break from stupid posts like yours. I'm out. n/t

[murielm99]

7. Oh, c'mon. Stay here.

We need someone to answer the stupid posts.

[anonymous171]

6. Why would he need to summon his masters? A servant would never summon his master.

That would be rude.

[geek tragedy]

8. Translation:

I'm an idiot, please put me on ignore.

[PBS Poll-435]

9. Ur Doin it Rong.

Most of the time I would respond to a post like yours with "Welcome to DU!!!," but meh.

[SpartanDem]

10. jackass

[Undercurrent]

12. On what planet does a

servant summon his masters?

[HopeOverFear]

2. What's that?? I can't hear you over the sound of all the bitching about torture

lol

[Pirate Smile]

5. You mean the torture memos no one thought Obama would actually release?

I know but as you can see from post 1, it doesn't matter what they do, they'll get the same self-righteous criticizing response from a vocal minority on DU.

[HopeOverFear]

11. Yeah, those!

[depakid]

13. Let's see if anything substantive comes out of it

Woodsheds are fine, provided that they result in laws, regulations and stringent enforcement that's actually designed to prevent and deter consumer abuses AND includes sufficient penalties so that the beancounters look at various illegal practices and adive management that the risk of being prosecured or sued- and the potential consequences than taking one's chances and raking up 10's of millions in fees, etc. by being a scofflaw.

Any thing else just a bunch of big talk and empty rhetoric.