Sure they may seem like a good thing…eliminating late fees, not allowing a spike in interest rates for being late, increasing the minimum payment so the balance gets paid off quicker, but there are repercussions. This may help people who are irresponsible, take on more debt than they can handle, don’t read what they sign, don’t keep track of their finances, but to the people who do it the right way it will likely hurt them. Banks aren’t going to just sit back and allow their profits to be eaten away like this. Instead of late fees they will charge annual fees. Since they will be restricted when and whom they can raise interest rates on, they will just raise them on everybody for no reason before the law takes affect. Forcing customers to pay an increased minimum payment may be more than some can afford at the time and will drive them into bankruptcy (how ironic that will be) Maybe they can only afford to pay a month until they get out of college and get a better job, then they can pay it down more. Who knows what each individual person’s situation is, certainly not a mickey mouse bureaucrat in Washington. I remember about 4 years ago when some financial regulatory agency in Washington was just RECOMMENDING that credit card companies increase their minimum payment requirements and people countered by saying, oh well this is only a recommendation, and I told them sooner rather than later the day would come when it would be mandated and what do you know, it happened. Also, it will be harder to get a card in the first place. I say if adults are irresponsible enough to take on more debt than they can afford and businesses are dumb enough to lend it to them, let them both go down and let them live and learn and leave the government out of it, but I guess this is what people wanted they checked that little box that said "Obama" 11 months ago. A liberal is what you voted for and a liberal is what you got. A do-gooder, and yes I do mean that in a negative way. You say why doing "good" isn’t always so nice. Sure, I read that part in the law that says this new law is "optional" The problem is, if I choose not to follow the government rules, I have to close my account altogether and not have a card at all and all future card holders don’t have a choice and have to play by the government’s new rules. Check out the article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091013/ap_on_bi_ge/us_bank_of_america_annual_fees