How finance reform affects us directly

The historic finance reform bill hammered out by a House and Senate panel is 2,000 pages long, but WalletPop had its yellow highlighter out to spare you one brutal summer read. (Actually, we had a lot of help from Reuters and The New York Times.)

Here are some of the tidbits on how the bill will play out for consumers if it passes, as expected, next week:

No help for the fallen: Our federal dollars would supposedly no longer be used to bail out massive misbehaving outfits like AIG and Lehman Brothers, which went bankrupt. The next time a conglomerate of suits goes belly up, the government vows to sell their pieces off like scraps to the bidding dogs. That hopefully means our tax dollars will be better used.

Credit transparency: If you're denied a loan, a mortgage or a credit card because of something fishy on your credit report, the denying party will have to show you what's fishy -- for free. We like anything free, even if it's a FICO revelation.