The Consumer Credit Bureaus are Unraveling American Self-Reliance and Compromising Our Greatest National Assets: The Individual and Small Business

Contact: Deborah Fineout-Launey, 212-737-4703, 518-929-3490 cell, launey@abolish-the-credit-bureaus.com

NEW YORK, Dec. 3 /Standard Newswire/ -- The Consumer Credit Reporting Bureaus, which purport to help lenders evaluate risk, control the flow of credit and encourage fiscal responsibility, have instead played a significant role in destabilizing the economy and are impeding America's recovery.

It is a predatory system that seizes on financial hardships and turns short-term setbacks into long-term liabilities. For the small business owner, he risks losing not only his business but also his personal livelihood and often a lifetime of investment.

And the nation loses its critical buffer: the once-resilient small business, when 'big business' falters.

"The Consumer Credit Bureaus have been ruthlessly chipping away at small business and are now derailing America's economic recovery. We created the website www.abolish-the-credit-bureaus.com, Video-short and Petition as vital tools for change; including examining recent comments by President Obama and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke," says small business owner, Deborah Fineout-Launey, of marketing firm LHH&F.

"Second mortgages, personal credit cards, large personal guarantees and the Consumer Credit Score should not be the tools for corporate lending. A national summit on small business is meaningless without lending reform," says Ms. Fineout-Launey.

When economic setbacks or downturns occur, many in the economy are affected - not because of credit 'abuse.'

Yet, in this system, the small business owner, working in good faith to stabilize his business and ride out the economy, finds that:

• A personal debtor's prison quickly arises;

• Leading to usurious fees;

• Loss of essential banking relationships;

• Credit defaults increase;

• Assets, personal and corporate, are stripped;

• Putting all parties' investments in escalating risk

The result is the unmerited loss of viable small businesses, loss of essential tax revenues, rampant unemployment, loss of real estate leases, healthcare, personal livelihoods, home foreclosures, and a dangerously weakened middle class.

"It is time to abolish the Consumer Credit Report and Score from small business lending and, frankly, in general. It reduces the small business owner's significant investment, and the investment of his lenders, to a gamble of epic proportions. It is a matter of moral conscience and economic necessity," she adds.

Robert Launey and Deborah Fineout-Launey are small business owners in New York, committed to drawing attention to the economic fallout created by the Consumer Credit Report and Score in small corporate lending.