Obama Calls for Credit Card Protections
President Barack Obama said yesterday the nation needs tougher laws to protect consumers who use credit cards. Replying to a question at a town hall meeting in Costa Mesa, Calif., Obama pointed to a study by Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard professor and chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP).
There’s a woman named Elizabeth Warren…who did a great deal of study around this. And she made a simple point…if you bought a toaster, and the toaster blew up in your face, there would be a law, a consumer safety law, that would protect you from buying that toaster. But if you get a credit card that blows up in your face, that starts off at zero-percent interest…and suddenly, it’s 29 percent; and if you’re late two days, suddenly you just paid another $30—well, somehow that’s okay.
I think generally having some consumer safety, some consumer protection around credit cards, is important.
Obama was referring to one of the COP’s recommendations to Congress in its recent report on the need for regulatory reform of the financial system. Those recommendations reflect many reforms proposed by the AFL-CIO.
