The big banks are storming Washington, determined to kill the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). They understand that a regulator who actually cares about consumers would cause a seismic change in their business model: No more burying the terms of the agreement in the fine print, no more tricks and...

Newsweek counts eight ambassadorships handed out to $100,000-plus donors since January. Add in Bush's appointee from Friday, billionaire Roland Arnall, and that brings us to a Big Donor Appointment Rate of one every 24 days. Billionaires, get your bids in now.

Roland Arnall paid in at least...

Today Ameriquest set aside $325 million in anticipation of a flood of lawsuits from defrauded customers. And at the same time, financial reporters have uncovered some very tricky accounting gimmicks used to keep the mortgage industry looking healthy.

President Bush had a quick and decisive response: Today he...

Make your payments on time and what happens? Maybe you do OK and maybe you end up with a huge rate hike.

Remember how former FBI Director Louis Freeh testified before the Senate last week that his new boss, credit card giant MBNA, never jerked up interest rates...

You have a low interest credit card and you do everything the card company wants—payments on time to the company, payments on time to everyone else, clean fingernails—everything, so your interest rate stays the same—right?

Wrong.

After the Congressional Hearing on Tuesday where a former FBI director

Did a former FBI director lie to Congress about his new boss's questionable business schemes?

Say you took out a credit card with a fixed 6.9% interest rate, charged up some items and faithfully made your payments on time. One month you discover that the bill has jumped to 29.9%....

Let’s say you buy a new washer and dryer. The sticker says $2200, and you pay $2200. If the store called you up two months later and said, “We changed our minds. We want $4,000 for those babies,” you’d tell them to jump in the lake. But let’s say you...