The New York Times in its editorial today The Fed Aims at Credit Cards supports our call for further Congressional action.

The banks will now do at least two things: they will lobby that these rules trump the need for Congressional action (wrong, but their phalanx of lobbyists will repeat it so many times that many in Congress will believe them) and they will lobby against implementation of the rules (for once, thankfully, they've got their work out for them, as Governor Kroszner, pictured in this New York Times story today explaining the move, appears to have a lot of ammunition for his 269-page proposal).

Here are more stories on the release: first, two from by Nancy Trejos of the Washington Post, who has covered this issue extensively (today and yesterday), a blog from professor Adam Levitin and one from Consumers Union, a story by Paul Adams of the Baltimore Sun, and a blog by Connie Prater over at creditcards.com.

In her story at Marketwatch, Ruth Mantell quotes my testimony from last month:

"The credit-card industry operates without fear of either market or regulatory action to temper its excesses, at the expense of the public's welfare," Mierzwinski testified.

I'll admit that there's now hope that things may be changing. But nothing will happen unless the public keeps the pressure on. One of the reasons the Fed has given for taking these extraordinary steps is that for the first time, it noticed a huge spike in public complaints about unfair credit card practices. That's because the unfair practices have spiked and consumers are so fed up with the banks that they looked up the Fed's address. The Fed has listened, so keep complaining, and send letters to Congress, too.