Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

American credit cardholders are known for running up debt. Now they are also spending billions of dollars annually to make sure their monthly bill gets paid even if they lose their jobs or some other hardship strikes. But a new government report shows that the price consumers pay for this debt protection may be too much for the benefits they receive. The Government Accountability Office reports that consumers shelled out about $2.4 billion in 2009 to the nine largest credit card issuers for debt protection products.

Holly Petraeus recalls one of her early financial regrets: a pricey British red convertible that spent more time in the shop than on the road. Petraeus and her husband bought the car on their first tour overseas with the Army in the 1970s. And as the couple prepared to return from Italy to the states, she says, she insisted on leaving the "very impractical" set of wheels behind. "I was always the one taking it to the shop," she says. Today her husband, U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, is the commander of the coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Maryland's Commissioner of Financial Regulation, along with regulators in other states, has agreed to cooperate with the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on supervising providers of consumer financial products, Maryland officials announced Tuesday. As part of this memorandum of understanding, state regulators and the new federal consumer bureau agree to consult each other on the procedures and practices used when conducting compliance examinations on businesses such as banks, mortgage lenders and money transmitters.