One of the things that you and I agree with is that the majority of people are stupid, yes?
Why yes indeed
The point here is that this information needs to be fed to people monthly, bi-monthly or whatever. No one looks at this crap once per year on their tax forms, because it is never required to be filed anywhere--and of course, being a CPA, you know that plenty of people never file their own taxes, right? So the exact people that need to know this information--the ~wealthy folks with generally great healthcare and the accompanying ignorance of what it actually costs throughout their lives, thus leading to the type of post we get in the OP--will never see it.
The point is that no matter how much you want everything in life to be transparent - you want to present folks with MORE information so that they can overall better informed, right? It makes sense on the face of it. The problem is over the years, it only serves to continue to confuse people more. Just like terms and conditions - people just scroll and click Accept.
We tried this with mortgages and auto loans. People just kept saying "The problem is transparency - if we just introduce another form to the already 50 pages that clearly outlines their monthly payments then they will make sure to sit there and understand what they are signing, right? NOPE! Another page in a giant stack just serves to confuse people further. You ever see those pages? They clearly outline:
This is the amount you are taking a loan for:
This is the amount of interest you will pay:
This will be your monthly payment:
This will be your escrow amount:
You get the picture. All of that is never enough for the stupidity of Americans. Hell, just look at the types of folks that buy homes and cars. They don't ask the question "What do I NEED when buying a house?" they ask "How much can I afford in my house?"
Hell, majority of people don't even read their pay-stubs, which is why employers these days are doing things like automatically enrolling employees in their 401k because otherwise people are too stupid to figure it out for themselves.
It's like some of the very good regulations from Obama's Consumer Protection rules that mandate cc companies include actual interest payments and costs to the consumer if they only pay the minimum every month. This is actually a new thing and, knowing you, would generate the type of response "Well, dumb people should know how much they are paying, how stupid it is for them to carry a balance--ahahaha stupid morons!" etc...but people aren't going to do that. Plenty of people just don't get it, or also have very tight budgets where they can actually afford to float on paying those minimums on top of their bills, but they can't actually pay the lump sums each month (unless they visit
@highland145 to help them out that month...then of course getting themselves in even more catastrophic debt. ).
Anyway, more information is always better. The fact that this piece of information exists on a negligible box once per year, that barely anyone ever sees, is as if it doesn't exist at all. If you think people benefit themselves from being better-informed, then the only solution is to provide more information.
I'm overall not against it, I think it's been completely proven by now though that it just doesn't make a difference. It would be one thing if everything was simplified on one sheet of paper - but it is not. It's always a stack of papers and people just look at it and say "How much longer do I have to be here, this is too much!".
Auto loans are still through the roof
Home Mortgage lending is still lending to practically anyone with a pulse
People still keep going to payday lenders regardless of the media and local governments warning people not to
Credit Cards have easily surpassed the debt load that they were pre-2008 crash.
So... no - I can't say your above statement is correct. They updated the credit card statements to include the stupid childish language of telling people how to calculate basic interest - and the problem is still there. A giant balloon that will inevitably implode once again.