Banks preparing to charge for debit card usage

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by Beemnseven

You do realize that the fee was imposed thanks to a law passed by Congress, right?

I have a better idea. Why not make it clear to Congress that we will no longer accept short-sighted interference into the market by placing arbitrary rules that favor one side over the other, creating an outcome that will only wind up costing the consumer money?

That's what happened here: Sen. Dick Durbin adds an amendment to the treacherous Dodd-Frank bill giving the advantage to retailers in a long dispute over who bears the cost of transferring funds electronically. The result? Banks get stuck with most of the bill, so they do what businesses naturally do when they have to answer to shareholders -- pass the expense to the consumer.

So don't blame the banks, blame Congress for screwing around with the free market.

But but but more regulation is always better. Regulation looks out for the little guys. Us little guys couldn't possibly make it without the gov't regulating all the mean nasty businesses who wish to actually make money from us poor innocent and free-ride-deserving consumers.

Lesson of the day...gov't involvement has a tendency to screw sh*t up. For every problem it purports to fix it creates at least one other new problem. Sometimes these new problems are worse than the original problem. And the last people on Earth smart enough to figure out which "solutions" will work and which won't are...you guessed it ..politicians.