Sometimes that isn't bias, as much as an accurate and objective assessment. It is a bad idea to seriously consider every ridiculous statement instead of dismissing it outright.

That's why politicians start from ridiculous propositions -- so that any "compromise" is well in their favor.

I don't think so.
They (CFPB) should anonymize the damn data, unless they are required to have trace-able unique identifiers and exact amounts to do their job. Is their job to survey the credit card provider performance or to collect enough data to later send individualized (get out of debt) offers to cardholders?

The data is surely skewed by "financing" offers. I bought some furniture a couple of years ago and in order to get my discount they effectively opened a credit card account (basically same as Macy's cards and their ilk). Of course I never used it beyond paying off my balance, because the rates were atrocious. But I believe it would count as an extra account.

You would think that perhaps "unique card-account identification reference number" could be omitted to try to anonymize the data?
Possibly even convert the data values into sub-ranges (income 60K-70K, 70K-80K, etc.), if all you need is to find out "what is happening" with financial products.

I will raise you with:
My 14 year old nephew recently closed his Facebook account after many years because "nothing is going on" there anymore. Possibly too many adults on Facebook now?

I am certain that should one of those programs (NSA or TSA) ever stop a terrorist plot, even by accident, such success would be trumpeted for years to come. The vague and general references to hundreds of terrorist plots is an indication that there is nothing real to talk about.

They are, but this is besides the point. We are not even "more safe" in any way. I think the best they could actually show is one guy convicted for sending $8.5K to some terrorist organization (that's after years and years of surveillance).
Other dozens (or is it hundreds?) of terrorist operations are stopped by regular police work or are made up.

If that provider stays and faces no competition it will not take long until they start establishing "partnerships" to make this connection usable again.

For example, Netflix or Amazon for streaming video that does not count towards the cap. It's not so far away -- if the connection is completely unusable, it will eventually be modified by "oh, this partner does not count towards the cap" or "this partner only counts @30% towards your cap"

Yeah, so that would be the difference. There isn't a problem with Starbucks collecting the data and even doing analysis anonymously to build better marketing campaigns that may take further action. There is a problem if they are going to sell (or give away) my identified information to anyone else, such as an insurance company.

And then there are credit reporting agencies that seem to make money from data that is automatically reported to them by credit cards/collection agencies/etc. Where do I sign up to receive reports about everyone's late payments?

So.... They are going to return his bitcoins if he is found innocent in a court of law, right??

I think maybe you should count the calories and not the weight of the product.
For example, assuming that I wanted to eat 2000 calories a day I would need ~6 pounds of potatoes, and less than 1 pound of potato chips.

Do I have to spell it out for you? "Credit card owner called and they do not recognize the charge because their card was stolen" qualifies as a charge-back problem. And because the items are sent within a day or two, it will often happen after the purchase has already been sent.

The point is -- just because you, as a consumer, do not have to pay the costs of stolen credit cards, do not assume that a faceless credit-card corporation will eat these costs. In reality, it will not.

Maybe not, but Visa/Mastercard might just pass the pain onto the retailers.
My dad runs a small business, and usually if there is any problem with a credit card charge, Visa/MC will extract money back from him in a blink of an eye.

Not if he has a higher salary at the new place, which he probably will.