Restaurants oppose $7.2 billion credit-card fee settlement

“the settlement would prohibit all merchants that use Visa and MasterCard – whether they decide to opt in or opt out of the settlement – from filing future lawsuits over interchange issues.”

This is a bad deal for the retailers.

Retailers should fight this settlement. And they should fight back by offering what consumers want: less bulky plastic. One plastic card should serve as various store credit cards and loyalty cards, each with it’s own statements and payment policies — all in one piece of plastic. So you could use the same single plastic card to spend on your Wal-Mart account, your Sears account, and your Home Depot account — depending on which stores you have signed up with.

A single plastic card please!

Seems they think they’re dealing with the SEC. they feel they should admit no wrong-doing, pay a simple fine, and continue doing whatever they want. I just love this new version of capitalism we’ve come up with. Thanks Ronnie!

Visa and Mastercard have been caught in a collusion scheme and that’s why they’re settling. Because they’ve been caught, they should also be subject to corrupt banking and anti-trust fines. They know they’re going to lose here. Keep pressing. Never take the first offer from someone who’s just been busted.

“A single plastic card please!”

Then when it gets hacked…..

Naaa, cash for me; if you want to steal it – you’ll need to confront me personally or use a gun at the bank. You can’t rob me from a computer in Beverly Hills.

I don’t hold up lines fooling with a failed card, problematic terminal, bad plastic strip, or maxed out card – cash isn’t rejected or declined.

And cash works at all those places – and more. Even if the power’s out.

This exposes the lie that small businesses are better off with less regulation. Somebody who is on the ‘less regulation’ anti-Dodd Frank bandwagon, please explain how letting these corporate leviathans run amok is going to help small restaurant businesses create jobs.

Nationalize electronic currency. We did it with paper currency 240 years ago. There are no private mints, to whom consumers and vendors have to pay a 6% handling fee over and over on the same money every time it is transacted. That would clearly be absurd. And us putting up with this outmoded visa-mastercartel for simple debit transactions is equally absurd. Electronic payments are the norm now, not some kind of goodie. It is no longer 1988. The ongoing transaction surcharge represents a net drag on the economy. A pervasive inefficiency that could be minimized by having Treasury take over electronic transactions at no charge to vendors.

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