Of course. After all, it's not as if anyone is going to stop them! They crashed the world economy and got nothing more than a couple of taps on the wrist, so why wouldn't they do this?

California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who filed suit against JPMorgan Chase last Thursday, says that from January 2008 to April 2011 -- just as people were reeling from the Wall Street-driven financial crisis -- the megabank unleashed over 100,000 lawsuits against consumers over uncollected credit-card debt in the state of California alone. That includes 469 lawsuits in a single day.

Now, it usually takes time and money to pursue lawsuits through the court system. So how in the world did Chase keep up this breakneck pace? The lawsuit claims that the bank took a number of little shortcuts, like robo-signing, in which bank employees produce sworn documents and other legal filings without bothering to check bank records or examine cases for accuracy.

Another nasty trick Chase is accused of deploying is what’s known, appropriately, as “sewer service.” This means that Chase failed to properly serve notice of debt collection lawsuits against consumers (it dumped the notices “in the sewer”), but then lied and said it did. This means, you, as a consumer, have no idea that a lawsuit has been launched against you.

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While it may not be as sex-ay as Breitbart punking every mainstream media outlet on the planet, it's worthy of note: the landmark Wall Street Reform legislation promised in 2008 at the height of the financial meltdown has now been signed into law.

Before everyone drowns in a sea of "but-buts" over what they DIDN'T get, let's talk about what WAS delivered:

• Tighter consumer protections on credit cards and lending. Among them: Simplified contracts, requirement for more transparency in disclosures, full advance fee disclosure, free credit reports once per year
• Consumer Protection Agency - This places all responsibility for monitoring and enforcing consumer protections under one roof, so that there is recourse and resources available to consumers from the Federal Government. Elizabeth Warren, who is one of the top candidates to head the agency, viewed this piece of the law as the foundation. Republicans fought tooth and nail on this, but it survived and became part of the final bill.
• The end of "too big to fail" Yes, it really does end too big to fail. If institutions are teetering on insolvency and present a risk to the financial system, there is now a procedure in place to unwind them in an orderly fashion without infusions of government dollars to prop them up.
• Real time reporting and transparency This is one of those quietly powerful provisions. Financial and trading data will be required to be available in real time in a standardized data format that can be used for analysis and review in order to be proactive about emerging anomalies and trends before they become a problem.
• Stronger requirements for bank capitalization Without climbing deep into wonk-land here, requiring banks to actually have a better debt-to-asset ratio with some stake in the loans they originate will do much to stabilize the industry and move forward.
• Shareholders now have a say in CEO compensation. That may not seem like much, but traditionally, shareholders don't have a lot to say about any company operations, so it does offer an opportunity for people to send a message to the CEOs of these companies.
• An end to "debit card fee bloat" - The pass-through of debit card fees is now limited to actual costs, instead of the routine bloat banks have attached in the past. This one should be interesting to watch...if people pay attention.
• Limits on rate hikes for existing credit card balances
• The Volcker Rule - Banks may no longer trade securities for their own profit while also managing customer investments.

There are more, but it would require you to follow me down into the rabbit hole to WonkLand. But here's one term everyone should know, and remember: Systemic Risk.

Systemic Risk is the heart of this legislation. It controls how regulators are to approach their regulatory duties: Single-mindedly, with the goal of identifying and smoothing systemic risk. What is systemic risk? Any risk which poses, or might pose in the future, a threat to the stability of the financial system and consumers.

It's a very large, very important concept which is the heartbeat of this legislation. It's critically important, and to a large extent, smooths the sharp edges of critics who say this legislation doesn't go far enough. By setting systemic risk elimination as the primary goal, it goes farther than any Wall Street reform legislation we've seen since the days of Glass-Steagall and Depression-era reforms.

So in between floggings of the administration and Congress for their failures, let's at least take note of the fact that with today's signing, this Congress and Administration have delivered some of the farthest-reaching legislation in decades. It may not satisfy all, but it's a significant accomplishment worthy of note.

It looks like Marco Rubio has a bit of a PR problem. A couple of problems, actually. It seems he may have spent some Florida Republican Party funds on himself and his family for personal things instead of paying attention to the laws and limits on what he's allowed to bill on his expense account.

Marco Rubio's high-flying Senate campaign hit its first significant turbulence today as the former state House speaker defended using a Republican Party of Florida credit card for more than $100,000 in travel and other expenses from 2006 to 2008.

Rubio said the $109,618 he charged the party was for legitimate expenses he incurred while traversing Florida to raise money for the GOP, support its candidates and promote property tax reform. He also billed the state party for his trip to the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis after being asked to speak at "several events" as a representative of Florida's delegation, a Rubio spokesman said.

Well, that sounds about right. In fact, compared to some campaign disclosures I've seen this week, it might even be on the low end. Except for this, anyway:

In addition to the expenses Rubio charged to the GOP, Rubio said he used the party credit card for $16,053 in personal expenses that he paid for from his own pocket.

Yeah, not so much, because there's this:

The GOP also paid $1,000 to help repair Rubio's minivan after it was damaged by parking attendants at a Republican function, Burgos said.

The rules for party expense accounts really aren't that tough: If you submit hotel, travel and meal receipts, they have to be tied to an official party event. If you purchase supplies or equipment, they need to belong to the party, not your kids.

If your van is sideswiped in valet parking while you're attending an official party event, that expense needs to be submitted to your insurance company as an official claim. It doesn't get to go on the party American Express card. That's part of the cost of doing business in this free enterprise world of ours.

Rubio's status as the newest darling of the far right and teabag set earned him a place at CPACs podium, where he shared his naked hopes and dreams. I re-read his speech tonight with an eye to his alleged use of the GOP dime. The irony, it drips:

They [Liberals] think that the free-enterprise system is unfair, that a few people make a lot of money, and the rest of us get left behind. They believe that the only way business can make its money is by exploiting its workers and its customers.

Or...exploiting one's sponsor.

Our campaign finance system bites, and no group is better at gaming it than the Republicans. If former State House Speaker Sansom hadn't been quite so greedy, it would likely have been business as usual in Florida and just about everywhere else.

I downloaded Rubio's federal campaign disclosures for his race against Crist to see what spending was taking place there. Unfortunately I can't link it up here because it was faxed or scanned instead of entered as an electronic record. Still, there were some interesting tidbits. I don't really know what they represent, but they don't feel like campaign expenses, necessarily.

• $1,500 "registration fee" to St. John Neumann School
• Sandy Hook Fish & Rib House: $2340 (Travel)
• George P. Bush [sic]: $265.80 (Travel)
• Jess Yescalis: $3,789.79 (Travel)

These are the ones that jumped out at me after a few minutes. While they may be perfectly justifiable and completely in line with activities of his campaign, they seemed high to me, and I don't really see how the school fee fits in there at all.

I also took a look at the Florida Republican Party March 31st Federal report. On January 12th, $34,756.78 was paid to American Express. Here are some of the expenses charged to the party by the cardholder. I don't know who held or used the card, because the report doesn't match it up with a person.

• VIP Travel & Tours: $550
• Amazon.com: $1,396.69
• Citrus Center Parking: $219.84 (how long was that car parked there?)
• Dell Computer: $6,087.75
• Apple Computer Store: $10,329.75
• Lenovo: $1,878.72
• Delta Airlines: $4,246.60 (First-class, anyone?)
• Other miscellaneous items like tolls, miscellaneous air travel tickets, pizza, rental cars, and 1-800-Flowers.com make up the difference.

Sounds like a geek's paradise there, doesn't it? Whatever it is, it doesn't seem particularly...conservative.

As the horsetrading winds down, it's clear that Elizabeth Warren is the right choice to head the new consumer financial services protection agency. Will she be given the chance?

Ms. Warren’s climactic hour begins now: three years after she hatched the idea for the agency, the White House has backed it, the House of Representatives has approved it and it is a top Democratic priority in the Senate.

Many fans, including Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, hope Ms. Warren will run it. But even if the agency is approved, it might be far weaker than what she envisioned, thanks to fierce opposition from the financial industry.

Critics argue that such an agency, which would regulate mortgages, credit cards and nearly all other loans to consumers, would tighten credit in an already tight market, stifle innovation and hurt small businesses.

They have another objection as well: to Ms. Warren herself. As one administration official acknowledged, the prospect of her running the new agency may be an impediment to its creation because of her crusading style, her seemingly visceral loathing of financial services companies and her expansive way of interpreting assignments.

“ ‘Loose cannon’ would be an appropriate term to apply in her case,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and a Warren supporter.

As always, I await Elizabeth Warren's critique. But it doesn't take an expert to see that forbidding states from writing their own, tougher regulations probably isn't good:

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee will unveil on Monday a proposal to revamp the nation’s financial regulations that would empower shareholders to have advisory votes on executive pay and to nominate directors for the boards of public companies through company proxy ballots, several people briefed on the draft legislation said Saturday night.

The shareholder provisions, which have been vigorously opposed by many corporations and by Republicans, will be part of a bill that would amount to the most sweeping overhaul of financial regulations since the Depression. But with no Republican support yet for the proposal, Democratic lawmakers and the White House have been gearing up for a potentially bitter partisan fight.

The impending proposal by the chairman, Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, hews in many ways to a proposal advanced last summer by the White House, the people briefed on the legislation said.

[...] The bill would create a consumer financial protection agency under the umbrella of the Federal Reserve, but with a director appointed by the president and the ability to write rules governing mortgages, credit cards, payday loans and a wide range of other financial products.

It would have some ability, within certain parameters, to ensure that the rules are followed; how the rules would be enforced has been a major source of partisan division. As in a House version of regulatory overhaul adopted in December, the bill would, in some circumstances, restrict states from writing their own, stronger consumer protection rules.

The Federal Reserve would see its bank supervision powers significantly diminished. It would continue to oversee bank holding companies with $50 billion or more in assets, and would be entrusted to regulate systemically important nonbank financial institutions. Mr. Dodd had considered setting the threshold at $100 billion, which would have been even worse for the Fed.

Okay, let's see if I'm following this. The administration is talking about lending money to small businesses because the banks to which they've already funneled billions didn't do the thing all that money was supposed to do: make them open up the taps and lend working capital to businesses.

Are we clear now?

The Obama administration is developing an initiative to take money from the $700 billion program for the banking system and make it available to millions of small businesses, which officials say are essential to any economic recovery because they employ so many people, according to sources familiar with the plan.

The new effort -- which would represent a striking shift from the rescue program's original mandate -- would direct billions of bailout dollars toward a program that aims more at saving jobs than righting the financial system.

A proposal being floated by senior Treasury Department officials calls for using the bailout funds to expand an existing government program that helps small companies borrow money from banks a low rates to keep their businesses going, the source said. These "working capital" loans would come with few restrictions and could be used for buying inventory, holding onto employees and paying off short-term debt.

The initiative would expand a Small Business Administration lending program called 7(a), the agency's most popular lending program. Lines of credit for small companies could greatly increase in size. If the firm failed despite receiving this help, the government would cover most of the losses on the federal loan, perhaps as much as 90 percent. Lines of credit act like the credit cards for companies -- short-term revolving debt used to pay a variety of immediate expenses.

Discussions about the plan have reached the highest levels of the administration. In a meeting at the White House last week, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner expressed support of his staff's proposal, while National Economic Council director Lawrence Summers was more skeptical. Neither has made up his mind, officials said.

"Larry has supported every small business idea we have implemented so far," said Gene Sperling, a counselor to Geithner, who has been working on small business issues. "When we have a brainstorming session on new ideas, Larry as always asks the toughest questions in the room."

The debate over the proposal has centered on whether taxpayers would be protected and whether banks that make these loans would lower their standards if the government promises to cover most of any loan losses, according to participants present or briefed on the discussions. The spoke on condition of anonymity because the conversations were considered private.

On one hand, administration officials want to prevent healthy small businesses from closing their doors and adding their workers to the growing ranks of the unemployed. But small companies have poorer record of repaying loans compared to large corporations and would be the riskiest investment made under the bailout program to date.

The officials said the discussions are in the early stages and that no plan is expected before the fall. Ideas currently on the table may evolve or be scrapped altogether, they said.

Anything that creates or maintains jobs is good, but I wonder if this will really do that. I think too many of those small businesses are already gone.

I've been following this for a while, and it's encouraging news if the commodities regulators follow through. These guys have been driving up the cost of oil with the same sort of shady tactics used in the financial markets. Good for the Obama administration if they take this aggressive approach:

WASHINGTON — Reacting to the violent swings in oil prices in recent months, federal regulators announced on Tuesday that they were considering new restrictions on “speculative” traders in markets for oil, natural gas and other energy products.

The move is a big departure from the hands-off approach to market regulation of the last two decades. It also highlights a broader shift toward tougher government oversight under President Obama.

Since Mr. Obama took office, the Justice Department has stepped up antitrust enforcement activities, abandoning many legal doctrines adopted by the Bush administration.

The Obama administration is also proposing an overhaul of financial regulation that would include tougher capital requirements for big banks, tighter regulation of hedge funds and a new consumer protection agency with broad power to regulate credit cards, mortgages and other consumer lending.

In the case of oil and gas trading, regulators made it clear that they were willing to move, without waiting for Congress to act on Mr. Obama’s overhaul, invoking their existing powers.

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.

President Bush has driven the GOP right into the gutter and it's finally starting to show in the wingnut media. Remember BillO going nuts in New Hampshire when he was given the B-list treatment by Barack Obama? We've covered a few of the latest warriors to fall, but my friend TRex has a more complete list of the losers: (Caution, may not be suitable for work)

Actually, it’s illustrative of the fact that the Pox News Cargo Cult is either dying off in waves (they are all 90 years old, after all), that Heath Ledger’s ghost is having a laugh at Gibson’s expense, or just that the wheels are totally coming off the Right Wing Propaganda Machine.

In the last six months, we’ve seen:

1. Michelle Malkin fired from “The O’Reilly Factor”.

2. Ann Coulter’s book sales tanking and her credit cards getting declined by Publix.

3. Melamine Misstatement fired from her job.

4. Tucker Carlson tossed out on his amply padded backside.

5. And now Jumpin’ John Gibson being taken away to be rendered into fat for cheap tallow candles for The Poor or whatever. Read on...

Rockridge Institute: Credit Cards for Everyone, but a Voter ID for Thee.

[On topic, anyone else noticed Christmas retail displays are up?  I mean, it is September 25.  Only three more months until Christmas.]