MPC Hill Blast: ICYMI: NY Times Podcast Says Swipe Fees Are ‘Just Killing’ Restaurants
On a recent episode of The New York Times podcast “The Daily,” Times food writer Brett Anderson told host Michael Barbaro what he keeps hearing from restaurant owners: "these 2% to 4% swipe fees are just killing them."
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MPC Hill Blast: ICYMI: ‘Airline Cards Are Messing Up the Whole Industry’ — NY Times
This piece in the New York Times lays out some of the problem web of ties and monopolistic practices between the credit card and airline industries. It makes clear that the few dominant airlines use credit card loyalty programs “as a weapon against carriers like Spirit” — blocking competition that could give customers better prices and service. And it shows that credit cards “marry the biggest banks to the biggest airlines.”
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MPC Hill Blast: Trump and Vance Endorse the Credit Card Competition Act Again … and Again
President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance know that the Credit Card Competition Act would bring long-overdue competition to the credit card marketplace and help stop the swipe fee ripoff. In fact, the President and Vice President have expressed public support for lowering swipe fees and the CCCA on FIVE separate occasions in recent months. In his most recent statement of support last week, President Trump expressed urgency: “… a bill we’re going to pass as soon as possible.” Let’s help the President make it happen.
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MPC Hill Blast: Fuel Price/Swipe Fee Tracker
Credit card swipe fees currently amount to 10.5 cents on the average gallon of gas and 15.1 cents on the average gallon of diesel, costing American consumers $63.7 million per day.
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MPC Hill Blast: ‘This Summer’s Biggest Points Swindle’
The Elliot Report has awarded the biggest swindle of the season — and it’s travel sites pretending to care about your interests while actually taking money from banks to lobby for them.
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MPC Hill Blast: Can Credit Card Companies Have Egg on Their Faces?
There is evidence of price-fixing pushing up egg prices, according to the Wall Street Journal. ...What does this have to do with credit cards? Well, credit card companies don’t need to manipulate anything — they just centrally price-fix swipe fees on behalf of all the banks that issue their cards.
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MPC Hill Blast: ‘Banks Have Never Had It This Good’
For close observers, that headline from the American Banker is not a surprise. Anyone watching knows that banks being part of the two credit card groups structured as cartels by Visa and Mastercard is great for their bottom lines. Not only that, but they win with inflation because they charge a percentage-based fee for every credit card transaction.
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MPC Hill Blast: Making it Rain: Credit Card Networks Cash In on $3 Billion Swipe Fee Hike
April showers are said to bring May flowers, but this year they also brought an estimated $3 billion cost increase to Main Street businesses through higher swipe fees. That was on top of the estimated unexpected $100 million increase in fees from Visa in January.
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MPC Hill Blast: Big Bank CEOs Get Richer While Grocery, Gas, Electric Prices Go Up
As summer begins, Americans across the country are struggling with rising grocery prices, gas well above $4 per gallon and electric costs at all-time highs. Big bank CEOs, however, aren’t exactly feeling that pain. In fact, the American Banker just reported that “Seven of the largest banks in the nation — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citi, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Capital One Financial — significantly increased their CEOs' pay packages for 2025.”
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MPC Hill Blast: Lower Swipe Fees, Consumers Save
A new Harvard Business School working paper says "Lower interchange fees lead to increased sales and lower prices.”
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