Whose best interests?

This Washington Post article discusses the recent credit card interest rate hikes experienced by many individuals done in an effort by banking institutions to recoup their recent losses due to the credit crunch and a weakening economy. What we're seeing is increased load on the people of our country to make up for losses incurred by banking corporations when many of us have already taken a hit financially for one reason or another ourselves (often that reason is terribly poor financial planning - the individual's fault for being ignorant in most cases). The Fed's rate cuts in the recent past, amounting to 2.25% since September, are said to be in the interest of our country as a whole. Ideally, lowering interest rates allows individuals and businesses to buy more and to pay less on the purchases they have already made, but when the banks don't pass these rate cuts to the people, and indeed in some cases raise their rates, the people are affected more and the banks are given an opportunity to make up for their lost profits that were due to financial decisions equally foolish to those made by many of our people. Just another example of corporate back-scratching by our government when the powers that be decide to do nothing when it's obvious that the banks are looking out only for their own interests and preserving profits, not the best interest of the people. The article does however mention keeping an eye on the activities of these companies intended on curbing the use of these rate cuts for their sole benefit, but I'm not holding my breath for any real action to be taken or for these "watchdogs" to decide that the banks are in the wrong.

In other news, Keith Olbermann is the mann: