Barney goes to the banks

What could be worse than something named the Frank-Dodd Bill?

The geniuses who wrecked the mortgage market are now going to set prices that private companies can charge for their product.

The bill authorizes the Fed to set debit transaction fees that are "reasonable and proportional" to the cost of processing the transactions, a phrase that has yet to be converted into an actual number. In addition to setting interchange fees according to some "reasonable and proportional" “fairness” standard (whatever that is), it prohibits the banks for charging overdraft fees unless the customer has agreed to be charged (ahead of time) an overdraft fee and who is going to do that?. The simple result will be that the banks will no longer allow overdrafts. First, if you overdraft your account there should be a fee; second if you are not allowed to overdraft the account, when you buy something hoping that the deposit cleared and it didn’t, the charge will be rejected. Which is better: not being allowed to buy the gas you really, really (No money – too bad - the debit card is rejected) or paying a fee because you didn’t plan ahead? Trick question. You don’t have a choice. The government has determined that they are making the decision that it is better if you can’t buy the gas and avoid the fee.

So, financial companies, car companies, health care, endless regulation of everything - what is next? The government that can’t do anything right is telling everyone else how to do things. Where are the jobs supposed to come from if all the companies are put out of business? These people are crazy and so are all the dopes who support them.

Wonder how Bush gets blamed for this one?