Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Tuesday, November 16, 2010

The benefits of regulation

By Dave Anderson:


After I put my daughter down for her nap this afternoon (she needed one as she played hard this morning), I got the mail.  I received the electric bill and an amendment to a credit card account. 


I actually understood the changes being made to my credit agreement.  This is a new phenonomon.  Previous amendments to credit card agreements have been thick, incomprenhisible and barely visible as this particular issuer really enjoyed using 3 point print for twenty seven pages. 


This amendment dealt with reductions in late fees and returning payment fees.  The bank listed what the old fee was and what the new, lower fee was.  Caveats and deadlines were clearly indicated in either bold or underline fonts.  The biggest change is that late fees can not exceed the size of the minimum payment, so if someone is a day late on a ten dollar minimum payment, they will no longer get hit with a $39 late fee. 


The only reason why the bank in question improved the terms of its late fee structure as well as writing to inform me of those changes in clear, concise and simple language is due to federal regulation.  Countervailing forces are needed against concentrated financial interests, and while the CARD Act was not perfect, it improved the balance of power between consumers and banks to a real and noticable extent. 



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1 comment:

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