New York Times:
Despite complaints that banks and credit card companies are gouging customers by charging outrageous interest rates, the Senate on Wednesday easily turned back an effort to cap interest rates at 15 percent.
frontline: secret history of the credit card: eight things a ...
Why banks are boosting credit card interest rates and fees ...
Credit card interest - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/magazine/17credit-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1
An excellent read...
I've got news for you thieves., I reject credit cards & I also reject credit. I should have listened to my dad & only bought what I could pay cash for. The more people that go back to this way of life, the better chance wehave of putting your thieving butts in jail & destroying your banks.
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtmlritee your representative
Write your http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfmcfm.cfm
Write your representative
Write your senator
Mr. Obama has said it time and time again. He needs your help to get legislation passed. He needs all of us to focus our energy on our local representatives. He said it again today at the NM town hall meeting. We have to focus our energy and outrage to push through THE CHANGE WE WANT!
Thanks for the links. I will call or write my representative and let them know that they SHOULD NOT pass any bill regulating credit cards companies. They are regulated enough. It is amusing to see you socialists call these government regulated companies "capitalistic companies." Regulated capitalism is an oxymoron.
This march to government control of everything (also known as socialism or communism) has got to stop.
Most conservatives think using credit cards is irresponsible behavior, but you don't see conservatives trying to ban credit cards. Why is it that the left just constantly forces the rest of society to pay into and live by their moral standards. Especially when these moral standards are very controversial, such as using tax money to fund the murder of unborn babies. That is wrong on so many levels it is shocking that people actually stand up in defense of it.
You're on the wrong side of reality and history.
Unregulated capitalism and democracy are mutually exclusive.
So are socialism and democracy.
And communism - which is really just another name for dictatorship.
A blend of the best of each is required for a stable, prosperous society - as we see in Europe. They are FAR more prosperous than us - just go visit for a while. Western Europeans have a significantly higher standard of living than we in the USA do, AND they have more freedoms...
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Well its all over folks. Ed on MSNBC just made the statement that OBAMA has said single payer health is off the table and will not be happening. We are so screwed, its just all over. The banks are moving in the make the final kill and the GOP are waiting in the sidelines to pick up the pieces. Our Dem Senate, its over for them, those spineless SOBs.!!! We have not gotten ONE thing as promised. Not one thing! Obama will be a one term pres and we are just screwed because we have a treasonous senate! They no longer care about us until election time again, then it will be lies, lies and more lies. Im finished, wore out, I have no more to give. Business wins.
These people are pathetic. We are a corporate owned state.
Soon enough, we won't have a penny left for them to siphon to their keepers.
LIEberman - no
Dodd - yes
Can't wait to vote in the Senate race!
Here's a link to look up your state Senators votes:
http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/111/senate/1/191
So what happens when the moneys all gone and jobs are few and no taxes being paid in?? Where will they move next? They are like a swarm of killer bees!
And gives us Lipitor and Viagra!
Here’s a list of the Democrats who voted against the bill.
Akaka (D-HI)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bennet (D-CO)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carper (D-DE)
Hagan (D-NC)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kaufman (D-DE)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Specter (D-PA)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Warner (D-VA)
I am thankful my Senator voted yea, I hope President Obama will not campaign for any of the Senators up for re-election, he needs loyalty. I have e-mailed the Whitehouse with my thoughts.
The end of the federal ban on usury started the whole banking mess that we find ourselves in now. Congress is even more in the pockets of the financial industry that it was then. Shame on those who could not bring themselves to support this common sense limitation...
No, it's just like sub-prime. If you want bad credit risks to have credit, the banks have to be able to price that credit accordingly. If you bring back usery, and cap interest rates at some arbitrary level - whether that's 3% or 30 %, there will be a group of people who cannot get credit, full stop. As a philosophical matter, that's probably a good thing, because credit card debt is poison. But reading the comments on this blog, you'd think that no longer having cheap credit is an assault on motherhood and apple pie. It's not. Get yourself out of debt, and teach your children never to get in.
Really. Is anyone surprised?
Politicians are the biggest welfare recipients in the country. Every need and want is supplied by tax payer funding. All extras they want are financed by the lobbyists. They pay for nothing, have guaranteed retirement and insurance benefits. What they forget is that it took more than the bankers and insurance company executives voting for them. Average voters must band together, watch their voting records and speak at the polls.
It sounds good in theory, but in reality, once they are elected it doesn't really matter. The gravy train starts and continues for the rest of their lives. Few leave the dance with the one(s) that they arrive with.
These posts are as obnoxious as the cable TV chatter. People fighting for their team, blue or red, like a football game. Most football fans will yell for thier team and boo the umpires even when they are obviously wrong. Same with politics. Instead of being red or blue why don't we really dig into what is right and wrong. People get real. Quit watching Fox news and Morning Joe and get your facts and figures. think with your own brain that G O D gave you and make informed decisions and remarks.
democrats owned by our banks
Actually, the only repub who voted in favor of this legislation was Grassley (KS). So, it would appear, that repugs are solidly owned by banks.
Simply Stated !!
THANKS FOR NOTHING !!!
Reform is necessary to make credit card interest rates and fees more transparent; however, banks are charging what they are charging now not to inflate profits (there are no profits in the credit card business right now), but to stem losses. A ceiling would have the very predictable result that anyone with less-than-perfect credit would simply lose that credit - the card would be closed. So, contrary to the assertions of some of posters here, the ability to price credit is what makes it possible to issue credit. Remember: no one has the right to a credit card, or the right to be loaned money. The lender can always say, "No."
Hey Mr. Compassionate Economist, tell me how it benefits the bank and economy when a person who doesn't use a credit card any longer and has 10,000 in debt and pays down as much as possible each month, but they cannot pay down a rate the Gambinos would be jealous of 30%+? If the rates on old debt are not capped at 15%, I cant use that add'l 300- 500 per month on investing into our economy. I am wasting my last penny on a worthless greedy bank, I'm not able to buy a new washing machine or go to a restaurant. This is why the economy cannot turn around, enough with the greed already. The banks have R aped our country with billions in Federal help and this is how we get repayed?
Thank you.
Okay, since you ask: First, the bailouts should never have happened, but they are irrelevant to the question at hand, except in this respect: they are to help the banks recover, not you or me. Second, the rates YOU are charged are tied to the risk of YOU NOT REPAYING to the WHOLE portfolio of loans. So if Mastercard has a trillion dollar trust fund (from which the money comes for your revolving credit) and many people start making delinquent or partial payments or not paying at all, that trust is at risk. The banks look at the unemployment rate and know, roughly, what it will mean in terms of those failures to pay. That reduces the return on the portfolio as a whole, WHICH HAS TO BE FUNDED FROM SOMEWHERE. In order to secure that funding, interest must be paid to those lending the money to it. If I stop making full, timely payments, my interest rate will rise to cover the risk of my not making payments at all. Even if you have perfect credit, and the macro-economic situation means that it is much more expensive to borrow the money that the credit card company turns around and lends to you and me, that additional cost has to be passed along.
By the way, as every financial planner will tell you, avoid credit card debt like the plague. Get out and stay out of debt for everyday expenses (your "go to a restaurant'). That $700 washing machine is REALLY a $1000 washing machine when you add up what you pay for it on a credit card over time. I want the government to live within its means, and suggest that you and I should do the same. If you have to use credit to fund food, clothing and shelter and life's other necessities (medicine, etc.), you're living beyond your means. The beneficiary of that VOLUNTARY behavior, as you have pointed out, is not you - it's the bank.
This is just not true. There have been many reports of high interest rates and other abuse by the banks before the economy tanked.
The banks are just soaking their customers.
To suggest that a rate cap of perhaps %15 would remove their profit incentive is absurd.
Let all the dupes who support the Democrats read the list of the Democrats who voted for the banks and against the people. Not just the so-called "moderates" but supposed liberals like Stabenow (let her keep on whining about bailing out the auto industry in Michigan), Kaufman (Biden's former aide who is now his replacement, Shaheen, Murray, Bingaman, and more.
What about the repugs? Out of 40, only Grassley supported the legislation. Let's not let them off the hook just because we expect them to do the wrong thing.
The worst congressional dem is still better than any of the repugs in congress.
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First Posted: 05-13-09 06:50 PM | Updated: 05-13-09 06:54 PM