President Obama invited a group of credit card company executives to the White House to urge them to reform the industry’s practices, such as sudden interest rate hikes and burying the terms of borrowing in fine print. It’s almost impossible to fathom that the time-honored American business practice of fine print would disappear (fine print is a part of the popular culture on par with the Simpsons and the Big Mac). But, the President is trying. Congressional leaders have his back on that one, too. Today, as Obama was meeting with the execs, influential Senators Christopher Dodd and Charles Schumer sent a letter to Fed Chairman Bernanke and the heads of the Office of Thrift Supervision and the National Credit Union Administration, urging the regulators to implement immediately a rule banning retroactive interest rate increases on existing card balances. The rule is now scheduled to take effect in July 2010, along with several other new credit card regulations imposed by the Fed. But the Senators claim that the credit card companies are aggressively implementing rate increases now ahead of the new regulations taking effect. House Financial Services Committee approved legislation (HR 627) that would set strict new limits on when card companies can raise interest rates and would require broader disclosure of information to consumers. Similar legislation is sponsored by Senator Dodd in the Senate. The stock market is going up and down today. Nobody would in their right mind try to predict where it’ll be at closing even this late in the day. The housing market data for March came out today, showing that the home sales declined 3% more last month from the month of February, but the median sales price nation-wide increased slightly. Economists are interpreting the housing data somewhat optimistically. Noting that the sales have stayed pretty much at the same level for the last 4 months, the majority see the housing market stabilizing. As the economic downturn continues its march around the globe, more and more countries are teetering on the edge of insolvency. And the favorite new lender to call for help in that case is… China. And--surprise, surprise!--there is a growing chorus of those who claim “Chinese model” of development is proving to be superior to the Washington Consensus development model.