Ken's Comments

Earlier some Republican Governors announced they would decline Federal Stimulus funds and the media and political opponents were highly critical. The State of PA is quietly considering whether to do the same thing. The Philadelphia Inquirer does a nice job of laying out the issues that point to why a state should consider rejecting "free money" to help unemployed workers. The gist of the Inquirer article (cited below) is essentially this - the PA Unemployment Fund is broke. The downturn in the economy has outstripped the funds available. A panel was appointed to figure out what to do. One of the things they were asked to consider is whether the state should accept $273 million in federal funds from the Stimulus package. Why would PA, or any state, reject free money from the federal government? Well primarily because it is not free. It will cost the Pennsylvania $300 million to get $273 million in federal funds. As the Inquirer article does a good job of describing, to ...

President Obama did a very good thing yesterday. He took executives of credit card companies to the woodshed in a private meeting with them. The President then outlined a list of practices he wants to see credit card companies implement. Congratulations to President Obama for doing a very good thing. Credit card companies have long used scads of small print to mislead consumers and to be able to change terms at a whim from those the consumer agreed to at the time of entering into the contract to borrow. These have included shortening payment cycles, raising interest rates, and imposing penalties. The result is that some Americans are deeper in debt merely because of these changes and not because of their borrowing habits. There is a proper use for government regulation and this is it. President Obama has called for clear disclosure of credit card terms, ending the unilateral ability of credit card companies to change the contract terms with little or no notice and, most important...