Financial Reform: Blocking Innovation, Not Meltdowns
Dave Mason /
One of many bureaucratic boondoggles in the Senate financial “reform” legislation is a “Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection Protection.” Just how exactly would the proposed new bureaucracy protect consumers? The same way bureaucrats do everything: with more paperwork and fewer choices.
A few years ago, a TV commercial showed a man in a trench coat slinking through a grocery story, slipping items into his pockets. He glided past the registers without stopping to pay, only to be stopped by a friendly security guard. “Sir, you forgot your receipt.”
This sort of instant checkout remains a dream in the United States, where many of us wasted hours waiting in supermarket lines ahead of February’s big snow storms. But it’s becoming common overseas. Shoppers in India, for example, can pay for their purchases by swiping their cell phone.