What Green Shoots?

If you're anything like me, you're sick to death of hearing about the "green shoots" that are supposedly signaling an upcoming economic recovery. Even a casual glance at the news makes my eyes roll: the supply of unsold homes has dropped for the second month in a row. Wow, so our real-estate crisis is over, right? Retail sales and the unemployment rate weren't "as bad" as experts thought they would be. "Not as bad" isn't good enough to boost confidence that things are getting better for most Americans.

Sure, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are announcing profits, but they wouldn't be allowed to fail even if they were throwing TARP money out the window. Meanwhile, there are millions of us out there struggling with what I call the poverty trifecta: high food prices, rising gas prices and increased credit-card debt.

As individuals, we're too small to bail out, but I think it may be time to reconsider that strategy. The economy still rests on the shoulders of the average grocery-buying citizen. So shouldn't we collectively also be considered too big to fail? Here are a few areas that could use a little attention from the folks in Washington:

1. Come Clean on Credit Scores
If I understand this right, the Fair Isaac Corp. uses a top-secret formula to determine a number ("FICO") to indicate my creditworthiness. Banks, hospitals, landlords and employers all use it to figure out if I pay my bills. People hold high FICO scores like a badge of honor, and those of us with a bad score simply change the subject and hope no one asks us about it.

But, if this number is so, so, so important to my everyday life, why is it so difficult to figure out how it's derived? Opening new credit-card accounts can lower your score. Closing cards can lower your score. Using your card can lower your score. Not using your card can lower your score. Paying only the minimum balance will definitely keep your FICO from improving, but (can you guess?) so can paying the full balance every month. Too many requests for credit or too many credit checks? You got it—down, down, down.

Want to improve your credit score? Well, FICO will sell you a package to fix the score that it creates. Doesn't that sound like something Tony Soprano would do?