Everyone’s Credit Score Will Improve! (Obama is my mule going up this mountain)

jamin | July 17, 2012 | 0 Comments

I heard something on NPR yesterday that made me smile concerning President Obama. It has been a long time since they’ve focused anything positive on him since Romney started becoming the front-runner. Every piece on Romney has been rather positive except for this Bain thing. So, I guess this is Romney’s time to shine as the new kid on the block the way that Obama shined in the media in 2008? I turn the station whenever Romney comes on to lie about something, much the same way most of the right-wing turns off Obama (every double-entendre intended there).

Anyway, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has just been charged with oversight of the three credit bureaus (Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian). Finally, someone is doing something about an unregulated business entity that has a lot of power over personal consumer financial standings for borrowing (credit). I have never liked that they do not reveal their formula for calculating a credit score, but it seems as if someone white with the same credit history as mine will wind up being about 20 points higher.

Fight me.

Why did it take this long to do something about it? Why did it take creating this new bureau (which has at once been hailed as an overdue Godsend for the American taxpayer dependent on credit, and a drain and waste of taxpayer money) to finally have someone who could provide oversight of these companies? I think they do more harm than good and reduce someone’s overall worthiness (not just credit worthiness) to a three digit number. People judge you based on a number when they do not even know what made you get that number in the first place. Maybe you lost your job, followed by your savings, then your home, then your health. Five months later and 300 points less, you arrive at a score of 400 and have to rebuild for at least 7 years to get your score back up. Meanwhile, the three bureaus are there laughing at you as you try to explain to anyone who will listen that it was due to things being out of your control that landed you here. They need a better way of checking credit to determine credit worthiness.

I am glad that the CFPB will do this. I hope this results in some openness into their methods, practices, and formulas for determining ~~how to mess up people’s lives~~ credit worthiness.

Thank you, President Obama, for this change that I definitely believe in. I hope the jobs news improves (it’s an anemic hope at this point) so that the CFPB can stay open and not get shuttered by a Congress and new President that would prefer that businesses go back to raping everyone and killing their hopes and dreams.