In addition, monthly statements will clearly indicate how long it would take for a consumer to pay off his balance making only minimum payments. But the new laws give wiggle room for rate hikes when it comes to so-called variable-rate cards, which offer interest rates based on a financial indicator, such as the prime rate, which rises and falls with the health of the U.S. economy.

The Fed issued 1,155 pages of rules Tuesday telling banks how to comply with new laws regulating credit cards that go into effect on Feb. 22. In a handful of cases, in which the law was unclear, federal regulators used their discretion to go a step further to protect consumers.

The downturn that started in December 2007 delivered a body blow to U.S. workers. In two years, the economy shed 7.2 million jobs, pushing the jobless rate from 5% to 10%, according to the Labor Department. The severity of the recession is reshaping the labor market. Some lost jobs will come back. But some are gone forever, going the way of typewriter repairmen and streetcar operators.

Many of the jobs created by the booms in the housing and credit markets, for example, have likely been permanently erased by the subsequent bust.

"The tremendous amount of economic activity associated with housing, I can't see that coming back," says Harvard University economist Lawrence Katz. "That was a very unhealthy part of the economy."

Google Inc. will stop censoring its search results in China and may pull out of the country completely after discovering that computer hackers had tricked human-rights activists into exposing their e-mail accounts to outsiders.

President Barack Obama is trumpeting a new White House estimate that his top economist calls "stunning": His stimulus plan has already created or saved up to 2 million jobs. The analysis is part of the administration's quarterly report to Congress on the controversial $787 billion package of spending and tax cuts he signed weeks after taking office.

More offers poured in. In his first week in the United States, Mr. Nakao got seven calls about jobs to fill the two days he wasn’t working. He was soon earning $1,000 a week. Then, two years ago, the global recession hit. Work got more strenuous, and the value of the dollar had fallen relative to Brazil’s real, slashing the value of the $400 a month he sent to his family in Brazil.

"Our survey clearly shows that Mexicans are pretty unhappy with direction of their country," says Richard Wike, the associate director of the Global Attitudes Project that carried out the Pew study.

Their number one concern? Crime. Eighty-one percent of those surveyed say it is a "very big" problem, followed by economic issues (75 percent) and illegal drugs (73 percent). Seventy-eight percent of those surveyed, in face-to-face interviews that took place in late May and early June, say the country is on the wrong track – up ten percentage points from the year before – and 69 percent say the economy is in bad shape.

"This data shows that Congressional Democrats continue to achieve strong credibility with Latino voters," said LPC Chair Jim Gonzalez.

The report -- Under Siege: Life for Low-Income Latinos in the South -- documents the experiences of Latino immigrants who face increasing hostility as they fill low-wage jobs in Southern states that had few Latino residents until recent years. The report can be read at www.splcenter.org.

Changes removing these impediments should be made immediately and not be sidelined by debate about economic impact. Citizens and residents who petition for family members must already sign affidavits of financial support for their non-citizen relatives.