Flutterby™! : Informed Decisions

Huh: You make lying illegal and and the market becomes more efficient. Go figure. New York Times: The 2009 Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act Cleared Up Credit Cards’ Hidden Costs:

“I went into the project with this sort of conventional wisdom that well-intentioned regulators would force down fees and that other fees and charges would increase in response,” he told me this week, comparing hapless rule makers to the carnival visitors playing the game known as Whac-a-Mole, where a mole springs up somewhere else as soon as one is knocked down.

And yet they found no evidence that interest charges increased or credit became less accessible. Basically, you force vendors to stop lying, and suddenly consumers can make informed decisions. Go figure.