• Debt

    Department of Homeland Security officials want to check immigrants’ credit scores. That’s a terrible idea for reasons nobody’s talking about.

    Since 1882, the United States has denied immigration visas to those who were deemed “unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public charge.” This principle has applied also to the renewal of visas of those already legally living and working in the United States, and in some cases, resulting in the deportation of people whose visas were otherwise still valid.   For the past twenty years, while nearly all undocumented immigrants and many legally-documented immigrants have been ineligible for a range of public benefits, the only people labeled as “public charges” were those who got more than half of their income from cash-based public benefits.   Trump’s Department…

  • Credit Cards,  Financial Regulation

    Are credit card rewards even good for consumers?

    Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that merchants like Home Depot, Target, and Amazon are becoming increasingly frustrated with the high fees they pay to accept rewards credit cards, and are seeking relief from the courts or through negotiations with Visa and Mastercard.   Particularly, merchants are looking for the networks Visa and Mastercard to end their ‘honor all cards’ rules, which say that if you accept any Visa credit card you need to accept all Visa credit cards, and ditto with Mastercard. Today, if you spend $100 at a large grocery store, Visa would charge the store a $2.20 processing fee if you used a top-tier rewards credit…