For example, you can also change the rules at any time for any reason, including no reason. Credit card banking is (according to the Fed) the most profitable form of banking.

But it now looks like the bankers actually need to work -- at least just a little -- for their money, which usually means new tricks will be coming soon to take more money from customers and merchants. A Page One story in the Wall Street Journal on May 25th by Robin Sidel, Credit-Card Issuers' Problem: People Are Paying Their Bills (paid subs. req.), reports:

Although consumers are using plastic for more of their daily purchases, they are giving card issuers fits by juggling their debts more shrewdly. When cardholders are hit with high interest rates on one card, they routinely transfer balances to new cards at lower rates. And in recent years, as real-estate values soared and mortgage rates fell sharply, more consumers wiped out credit-card debts altogether by borrowing against their homes.

It's good to see that consumers are beating down their credit card debts. We have more helpful information at Truthaboutcredit.org. For many, if not most, consumers, of course, turning unsecured credit card debt into debt secured by the risk of losing their homes is a bad idea. This piece from a credit union explains the issues and alternative ways to pay down excessive credit card debt.

Although it was not reported widely, on Tuesday, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby asked Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke whether we needed better laws to tell consumers how much credit card debt they are ratcheting up and how long it will take (in months and years, and for some, in eras and eons) to pay it off when they only make the minimum payment. Kudos to Chairman Shelby. From CFO Magazine:

Bernanke, who told senators that the Fed is reexamining the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s consumer-protection rule, Regulation Z, to see that lending fees and terms are fairly represented, was pressed on this point by committee chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). Shelby asked whether the Fed could compel credit-card issuers to include a warning on statements about how long debt would linger if only the minimum payment were made, "Or is legislation necessary?"

Several PIRG-backed bills (S.393-Akaka, D-HI and S.499-Dodd-D-CT) to replace a pending industry-approved generic disclosure with a customized specific disclosure on each consumer's monthly bill are languishing in Shelby's committee, which unfortunately contains a majority of members who usually back the banks. Previous blogs here and here have more info.

After that Senate hearing, a TV news talk show scheduled me to debate a banker on the issue. They called back the next day to cancel. Reason: Even though Washington is awash in financial industry lobbyists and their sundry PR flacks, no banker wanted to talk about excessive credit card debt or deceptive credit card practices. Imagine that.