Backlash against the bankers

0 Comments | USA TODAY, August, 2008

Arcane Federal Reserve Board regulations don't typically generate outpourings of emotion from consumers. But its proposals to curb the most egregious abuses by credit card issuers drew a record 56,000 comments.

In a typical letter, a woman from Corpus Christi, Texas, urged the Fed to "protect citizens like me" from an industry that has the power "to easily ruin the lives" of consumers.

The backlash against issuers' tactics has been building for years, and deservedly so. Banking regulators and Congress have coddled the industry, which has worked its will over the past two decades with an army of lobbyists and more than $200 million in campaign contributions spread around Washington.

This year, however, the bankers got a rude shock: In separate...