Overdraft protection coming ... at a snail's pace

As we told you earlier, the Federal Reserve just announced it would begin reigning in the scourge of debit-card users nationwide: overdraft charges. The good news is that the new ruling will prohibit banks from foisting this so-called protection on customers automatically; instead, consumers will have to voluntarily sign up (don't all line up at once, now!) The bad news: It's going to be another eight long months before this relief comes.

The government is making Americans wait until July 1, 2010, to get the relief they've been literally begging for, even though Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke called the new ruling "an important step forward in consumer protection."