Media

On the third anniversary of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act being signed into law, the average debt has declined, but many Americans are still using credit cards as a way to cover basic living expenses, according to a national survey from the policy center Demos.

A national research firm says a recent survey of low and middle income consumers indicates the2009 Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act is helping consumers reduce their credit card debt load.

Public transit in the U.S. is a classic chicken and egg situation: outside of a few metropolitan areas, transit networks are not dense enough to be useful so few people take public transit. If few people take public transit, there is not enough demand or political will to expand transit networks, leading to low ridership, and so on. With this cycle, it becomes easy for politicians to forgo investing the capital and political will necessary to build out transit networks because they can point to low ridership and say there is no public appetite for it.

One big question at the center of the private equity debate is whether firms like Bain Capital intentionally set out to burden the companies they take over with debt -- or whether things just sometimes go sour amid failed turnaround efforts.

The Senate Banking Committee hearings on Tuesday enlightened the public on one extraordinarily important fact. Politicians can be expected to lie, bully, and engage in character assassination to serve the basest of motivations.

In the latest unfortunate news at the intersection of motherhood and politics, stay-at-home moms are doing worse emotionally than their working counterparts.

With anti-regulatory fervor gripping Washington, it’s difficult to imagine both parties working together to enact successful public safeguards that protect Americans. But it wasn’t that long ago that strong, bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate took action to defend consumers against predatory practices in the credit card industry. Three years ago today, President Obama signed the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act (Credit CARD Act) into law.

The economy may be growing again, but many Americans are still in a cash crunch.

In the past year, 40% of low- and middle-income households used credit cards to pay for basic living expenses, such as rent or mortgage bills, groceries, utilities, or insurance, according to survey released Tuesday by think tank Demos.