时间:2019-01-11 作者:英语课 分类:VOA慢速英语2009年(五)月


英语课

This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.


A bill to place new restrictions 1 on the credit card industry in the United States won final approval this week in Congress. The measure went to President Obama to sign into law with popular support, except among banks.


Credit card companies will have to inform cardholders forty-five days before they raise interest rates or change other important terms. The new act will also bar companies from raising rates on existing debts unless payment is at least sixty days late.
 
A motorist uses a credit card to buy gasoline in Morgantown, North Carolina


Also, companies will have to send out billing statements at least twenty-one days before a payment is owed. They will have to tell how long and how much it would take to pay off a card if the holder 2 makes only the lowest monthly payment. And they will have to write their cardholder agreements clearly and publish them online.


These changes, however, will not take effect for nine months.


President Obama recently said it was time for credit card reform:


BARACK OBAMA: "Instead of an 'anything goes' approach, we need strong and reliable protections for consumers. Instead of fine print that hides the truth, we need credit card forms and statements that have plain language in plain sight."


Credit card companies say the changes will only reduce the availability of credit. These come at a time of recession when banks are reporting billions in losses in their credit card divisions.


The president of the American Bankers Association says the legislation "changes the entire business model of credit cards." Edward Yingling says it restricts the ability to price credit for risk -- in other words, to charge more for those more likely not to repay their debts.


Lots of people pay off their credit cards in full each month to avoid finance charges. But industry experts say card providers might now start charging new fees for all cardholders. And, they say, companies could raise their interest rates.


Americans held nine hundred forty-six billion dollars in credit card debt at the end of March. That was down from last year, but still about twenty-five percent more than ten years ago.


Elizabeth Kiss is a personal finance specialist with Perdue University in Indiana. She says the main value of the new credit card act is that it "provides an opportunity for consumers to have more information."


But, she says, consumers have to make their own informed decisions. In her words, "We need to know how using credit fits into our plans and goals."


And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. I'm Steve Ember.



约束( restriction的名词复数 ); 管制; 制约因素; 带限制性的条件(或规则)
  • I found the restrictions irksome. 我对那些限制感到很烦。
  • a snaggle of restrictions 杂乱无章的种种限制
n.持有者,占有者;(台,架等)支持物
  • The holder of the office of chairman is reponsible for arranging meetings.担任主席职位的人负责安排会议。
  • That runner is the holder of the world record for the hundred-yard dash.那位运动员是一百码赛跑世界纪录的保持者。
学英语单词
actinocarp
aerodrome beacon
aerodynamic rocket
airdashes
amphigen
antiglycolytic
anula
arriviste
asdic control room
baldassares
bilimbi
billygoats
bodily secretion
bonus scheme
borten abtanz (rumania)
broad band light source
center distance of riser
chromodoris odhneri
Comessatti test
cornsmut
Cotoneaster gracilis
curtain neat
cybervulnerability
Darién, Sa.del
day before day before yesterday
derbends
direct effects assumption
duplex chilled
electrotechnics
emergency category
English strong ale
entropion forceps
fagus lucida rehd. & wils
feather-cone fir
fermentation inhibitor
flick through sth
fluke worm
fund-raise
genus bruckenthalias
geomicrobiologist
glauming
Green Mountain State
growth-blocking peptide
guide-shoe
i-wone
iccu
inotropism
inscribed polygons
iron pail
iwill
Kalābishah
kazembe
Lauth's ligaments
lipsha
make a present of something to someone
marine microbial morphology
mass merchandiser
mesarch xylem
miskatonic
mittelstadt
mobile-unit truck
moving-coil type relay
Namukumbo
nevills
niggets
nonsmiles
oberlin
oops
pentaamine
pepperoni roll
petiolus epiglottidis
phloxin
picked her up
pilot frame
plottered
postmodern
puroclast
Rajasa
recovering expansion energy
red sorghum
reed tachometer
refractory-lined ovens
right opposite
Rodferon-A
row scanning
school counselor
semicarotenone
social objectives
spare attachment
standing wave voltage ratio (swvr)
streambuf
suchlikest
suffocate
sunitizing
t-i
tartaric acid solution
The Party Claiming in General Average
tombestere
two-dimensional state of stress
ultravisuscope
Xiphydria
zoomancy