As part of my efforts to publicize the release in paperback of my novel, The Money Suckers, I arranged to speak to a local 912 tea party group in Oakton, VA, just outside of Washington, DC. I attended their meeting yesterday afternoon. After sitting patiently through their planning session about how they were going to carry their message to the politicians and the public, suddenly, it was my turn to speak.

There's a small, grassroots effort underway attempting to urge Americans with bank accounts at the "too big to fail" banks to move their accounts to smaller, community-based banks. The idea is that these banks behaved more responsibly during the mortgage boom, so therefore it's safer to put your money there.

From moveyourmoney.info:

Apparently, the anticipated increase in the number of mortgage resets in 2010 has a number of people worried, although none of them seem to be named Bernanke, Geithner, or Summers. I did a little searching on Google News today and found lots of people are noticing. Too bad the major media haven't noticed.

One of the biggest challenges facing banks today is how to cover the losses from all the foolish mortgage loans they made over the past few years to buyers who really couldn't afford them. Part of the answer is now apparent. They plan to make credit card holders pay for them.

Over the past year, millions of credit card customers have received notifications of coming interest rate hikes on their existing credit card balances. In some cases, credit card interest rates now top 20%, 30%, and even 40% annually. Wow!

A reader of my blog piece yesterday wrote to me via email and quoted me from my piece: "'Most people don't realize that regulation is not about preventing harm to people.' I'm guessing that you meant '...regulation is not just about preventing harm....'" Dear reader, I actually did mean that the purpose of regulation is to permit harm. Here's why.