Free Republic

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog_post/beyond_the_echo_chamber/ Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 12:55 pm Advice from "beyond the echo chamber" We just learned the economy lost another 600,000 jobs last month. It's a staggering number, and it underscores just how deep this crisis is – and, as the President pointed out this morning, it’s accelerating. That's why he created the Economic Recovery Advisory Board -- to solicit ideas from "beyond the echo chamber of Washington, DC." "I’m not interested in groupthink, which is why the Board reflects a broad cross-section of experience, expertise, and ideology," he said. "We’ve recruited...

The companies that determine Americans' credit scores are about to come under government oversight for the first time. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Monday that it will start supervising the 30 largest firms that make up 94 percent of the industry. That includes the three big credit reporting firms: Equifax Inc., Experian and TransUnion. In remarks prepared for a speech Monday, Richard Cordray, the government agency's director, said that scorekeeping by credit bureaus plays such a large role in Americans' financial lives, it requires scrutiny.

A mistake on your credit report can cost you literally thousands of dollars, especially in this economy. So what can you expect from a big credit bureau if you ask them to investigate and correct the error? The answer, for many consumers: About 50 cents worth of effort, conducted by offshore workers at third-party firms. That’s just one of the findings from SmartMoney’s investigation into why credit-report errors continue to pop up so frequently—and why consumers often have so much trouble getting them fixed. To follow what one consumer advocate calls an “electronic hot potato,” SmartMoney pieced together a depiction...