Is your mortgage confusing to you? Are you bewildered by credit card offers? Do you crave the simplicity of "plain-vanilla" financial vehicles whose complete terms can be read in less than four min...
Is your mortgage confusing to you? Are you bewildered by credit card offers? Do you crave the simplicity of "plain-vanilla" financial vehicles whose complete terms can be read in less than four minutes?
Be careful what you wish for: The Obama administration and members of Congress are pushing legislation that will create a new agency, The Consumer Financial Protection Agency, whose job would be to simplify and police all manner of financial transactions, from what sorts of mortgages could be offered to what sort of credit cards would be in your wallet to whether Wall Street could create new ways of buying and selling stocks. In the name of making your life easier and avoiding the next financial meltdown, the CFPA might just harshly limit how you spend your hard-earned (and dwindling!) dollars.
Would the CFPA do anything other than add another layer of bureaucracy and regulation on top of what already exists? Are consumers too bewildered by competing credit cards to make a rational choice? Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie recently sat down with George Mason University law professor, Volokh Conspiracy blogger, and Mercatus Center scholar Todd Zywicki to get answers.
"The agency is one of the centerpieces of the Obama regulatory reform act[s]," says Zywicki, "It goes far beyond how we've thought about consumer credit regulation for the past 30 or 40 years." More importantly, it will do nothing to address pernicious incentives that encouraged banks and consumers to take on more debt than was prudent.
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Here is the secret with credit cards. Don't use them to extend your budget outside your means. You can use them to help your credit score and not have to have cash or a load of debit transactions to keep track of daily. Keep track of your spending of course though. Don't focus on your set limit by the credit card company, instead set yourself a limit built into your monthly budget, pay every bill off 100% each month, if you cannot, your overspending. If can't stop yourself, get rid of the cards.
READ BEFORE YOU SIGN ANYTHING. If you don't understand the agreement. Don't sign it until you do and from your understanding of the agreement are willing to agree. If you sign an agreement you don't understand it's not the other party's fault you don't understand it. It's your fault for agreeing to it. Take some personal responsiblity. Essentially Obama by things like this is saying, "Ok look, the people are stupid and uneducated. Therefore they are not responsible for their own actions." FAIL
But that's your choice. Personally, I dislike going into debt of any sort, and every time you charge something you are going into a form of debt. *shrugs*
And on the style, Nick Gillespie looks like he could kick Jean Claude van Damm's ass by ripping off Superman's arm, clubbing Rambo to death with it, taking his gun and going Matrix on the Nederlander douchebag. I like that.
Who give a flying f**k about product complexity. Complex products lead to broker markets. Broker markets have, well brokers, who are expert enough to mitigate contracting hazards. Of course, this makes products more expensive to sell and market.
But wait! That's a huge economic incentive to keep products simple. Then the best explanation for overly-complex financial products is some externality....thinking...thin king...got it! Government regulation.
The credit small businesses utilize comes into play often. Like a consumer who puts several purchases, over a weekend, on a card and then does it again a next weekend. Small businesses work to grow and will buy justified by speculation of sales. This is not new. Something about that reminds me of the 90's. -Frequent purchesness via low cost items is not limited to consumers. Convenience stores and Extension Class Community College Educators partake in the phenomenon. Same as the old boss.
Autoshare makes certain YouTube activities public on the services you choose. Select only the services you are comfortable with - like Facebook, Twitter, or Google Reader - to let your friends know what you like on YouTube. You can turn Autoshare off at any time.
If you don't understand the agreement. Don't sign it until you do and from your understanding of the agreement are willing to agree. If you sign an agreement you don't understand it's not the other party's fault you don't understand it. It's your fault for agreeing to it. Take some personal responsiblity. Essentially Obama by things like this is saying, "Ok look, the people are stupid and uneducated. Therefore they are not responsible for their own actions." FAIL
I carry zero.
But that's your choice. Personally, I dislike going into debt of any sort, and every time you charge something you are going into a form of debt. *shrugs*
But wait! That's a huge economic incentive to keep products simple. Then the best explanation for overly-complex financial products is some externality....thinking...thin king...got it! Government regulation.
This is not new.
Something about that reminds me of the 90's.
-Frequent purchesness via low cost items is not limited to consumers. Convenience stores and Extension Class Community College Educators partake in the phenomenon.
Same as the old boss.