S.C.R.E.W.U. or the Safe Credit Revision Everyone Wins Undertaking

(MoneyWatch) 
According to a new cartoon by Mark Fiore, an award-winning political animator who hangs out somewhere in the Bay Area, this is the program that credit card issuers have developed in response to the CARD (Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009) which is to go into effect on the belated and benighted date of February 22. That's unless the Senate follows the House's lead -- which it should but won't -- and moves the deadline for banks' compliance to December 1. In the interim between the Act's passage in May and late February, says Fiore's ad for the program, banks aim "to get as much of your money as we can before we can't." And have they ever! As CNNMoney recently reported, major card issuers like Cap1 and Amex have jacked up rates and fees so high that their stocks are now flying.