Tort reform: for whom?

One of the big pushes for "conservatives" is tort reform, but it seems they are only concerned with individuals suing large corporations and winning seven figure judgments (millions).  Have you noticed these same critics rarely call for tort reform of one corporation against another?  Or multiple corporations judgments won by multiple corporations? On the order of ten figures (billions)?

This is the judgment that was made against Visa, MasterCard, and several banks in favor of many merchants.  The judgment: 7.25 billion dollars!  See "Visa, MasterCard, banks in $7.25 billion retails settlement", Reuters via Yahoo! Finance, 2012-07-13.  Where is the cry for tort reform in this case?  But if that is not enough, Target and Wal-Mart have chimed in that the judgment is too lenient!  It is not changing a "broken" system.  See "Wal-Mart opposes proposed settlement on credit card fees", Rueters via Yahoo! Finance, 2012-07-27.

I haven't worked out the exact numbers, but if a credit card company charges merchants two percent on card transactions, pays the merchants within a week, and collects from the cardholder within a month, it is charging about 12% interest or better.  Considering that almost all the credit card processing is done by computer rather than an army of clerks transcribing charge slips, the processing costs per transaction are fractions of a cent.  Oh, and another place all the jobs have gone.  What a money machine!

Just what are high-rate balances

One of AT&T Universal Card account holders pages has a little ad: "'I'm finished with high-rate balances.' Consolidate you high-rate credit cards into one monthly payment and save money on interest."

My rate is now 20.030% APY. Gosh, what kind of "high-rates" are they talking of?

I wonder if I'm better off taking money out of a mutual fund to pay this high-rate balance and paying myself instead. But then I'll have to figure out the capital gains and report it on next year's taxes. And the price per share could go up getting me fewer shares when I put the money back. Or the reverse. Decisions, decisions!

Cash is becoming obsolete, will credit cards follow?

Imagine this! You go into a store to purchase something. When it comes time to pay you whip out, not your credit card but your cell phone. The merchant gives you a number, you call PayPal, enter the amount of the purchase and the number the merchant gave you. A moment later the merchant receives a notice on his or her computer that the payment has been made. The merchant wraps your purchase and thanks you for your business.

Far-fetched? No, it is technologically feasible and has been implemented in many parts of the world, see "Mobile Payments". The above scenario is a four-step process. The purchaser calls his or her financial institution. That company approves the sale and calls the merchant's financial institution transferring the money. That company sends a message to the merchant's computer. The merchant sees the message and completes the sale.

Apple has this down to a three-step process for iTunes and PayPal has it down to a seven-step process. I would guess that Apple trusts most of its iTunes users and eliminates the approval process. See "From Credit Card to PayPal: 3 Ways to Move Money", Wired, February 2010. See also the main article, "The Future of Money: It's Flexible, Frictionless and (Almost) Free".

To think that Congress passed an enormous bill to rein in the reign of the credit card companies. It could have passed a one-page bill to authorize Federal agencies, including the IRS to accept payments through PayPal.

True capitalists should welcome this creative destruction, which really is the basis for innovation, not behemoth near monopolies. For more on creative destruction, see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction