Boy. I certainly wouldn't want to give my business to this bank:

PHILADELPHIA – An elderly New Jersey woman billed $5,800 after missing the final payment on her 30-year mortgage can pursue her lawsuit against the debt collectors.

Lawyers for 85-year-old Dorothy Rhue Allen say the fees charged by two banks and a law firm violate consumer-protection laws.

The suit says LaSalle Bank and Cenlar Federal Savings Bank started foreclosure proceedings in 2007 after the hospitalized Allen missed the last $432 payment on her Deptford, N.J., home.

The banks advised her lawyers she could pay $5,800 to avoid foreclosure. But her lawyers instead sued over the fees, and the foreclosure action was dropped.

A U.S. appeals court this week says Allen can pursue her case, reversing a federal judge who threw it out.

Of course the banks are up in arms about any legislation that would turn off the usury spigot they've milked for decades. Ann Logue at Popdose points out just one example:

...my credit card limit is $20,000. I could use the card to fly first class to Paris and go on a spree at Le Bon Marche yet pay no interest if I paid it off in full the first month it was due. But take $140 from an ATM and hold the balance for 20 days or so, and the total fees and interest work out to about $24, an annual interest rate of 208%.

Another crazy practice is late fees: I've received a credit card statement showing my payment as posted (they got my money in time to print it on my paper statement) but because they posted it one day after their "due date" they tried to charge me $29.00 in late fees. I called and complained (which works more often than you might think, do try it) and they reversed it, but how many $29.00 payments do you think got added to their balance sheets this year from people "afraid" to call a creditor?

Obama's bill does not go far enough, and doesn't start soon enough (one year for most of its provisions IF the Senate passes it) but it's a start.

ACORN released the following statement via email this afternoon after the release of new credit card regulations:

ACORN President Maude Hurd released the following statement in reaction to the new regulations approved by OTS, NCUA, and the Federal Reserve:

"While ACORN welcomes the elimination of double-cycle billing, universal default, and the raising of rates on outstanding balances, this modest and long overdue proposal should in no way blunt the huge momentum toward Congressional action on much stronger regulations that will provide consumers with the robust protection they deserve and that our economy demands to prevent mass defaults. These new rules, for example, do not even take effect for 18 months, and the American people will demand swifter change on this area of broad agreement."

White House For Sale: Take a look a the number of lobbyist-bundlers the 'straight talker' has working for him.

Political Animal: In the Middle East, "everything the United States has favored is now radioactive, especially democracy..."

Article of Faith: I need a drink

Balkinization: Historical precedents of torture

Senate 2008 Guru: The League of Conservation Voters has released their National Environmental Scorecard for 2007

HOLY CRAP: Usury Law and the Christian Right...Christian conservatives are great proponents of democracy in the Muslim world, except when it's democratic...Prominent Southern Baptist issues Death Prayer against critics...Religious liberty?...The 'sophisticated elites' of fundamentalism...This is what a theocracy looks like...Baby Bible Bashers...Southern Baptists and the Republican party...IRS investigation into partisan politicking by a California church...The trouble with following your own moral compass...