Elizabeth Warren Interviewed By Bill Maher On Credit Card Legislation, Usury (VIDEO)

TARP watchdog Elizabeth Warren sat down for an interview with Bill Maher on last night's episode of "Real Time." One of the topics she and Maher discussed was the current credit card legislation and how usury has regained a place within our society. Warren stated that this is the reason we needed a credit card bill of rights, to prevent companies from arbitrarily raising interest rates and burying people in a mountain of debt. Maher took another angle, saying it proved that we really just don't treat each other very well.

Watch a clip of the interview below.

Comments

[Rick Goodner]

True Bill people are not at the base good.

[october2009]

I disagree. I think the vast majority of people are good while a small powerful minority ruin it for all of us.

Throughout my day I rarely come across a bad person. All the people I know are pretty good. I think it's about time we start understanding this.

[ThePeacemakers]

I understand this Oct. 09.
We just need to get the GOOD people in positions of power.

That's the problem.

[WritusMaximus]

Self-promotion, money, and power at the expense of others has ruined many a good person.

[Marmann]

Elizabeth Warren also was on the Daily Show and had an excellent interview with Jon Stewart. Am I the only one who has noticed that it's the COMEDIANS who are SERIOUSLY interviewing people and who are the GENUINE "investigative reporters" out there? We just don't get this stuff from network news.

[crisdel]

I was so impressed with her Daily Show interview. I think she's fast becoming the American voice of economic reasoning. I agree with you about the serious role that comedians are currently playing. I think it's because their gift of humor enables them to see the ridiculousness - the farce - of what's going on.

[crisdel]

Here's the Jon Stewart link
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=224256&title=intro-bailout-acronyms

[totaldisbelief]

Thank you...she's great.

[crisdel]

Sorry - the above Jon Stewart link is not the interview.

[jhoughton1]

Very impressed with this woman. Hope she wields a lot of power.

[cobdev]

dont worry folks there is a new card coming!!

FEDBANK unlimited inc.
unlimited credit (no intrest, no payback

small print
only bankers can apply.

[111]

I think they have had that card for a long time. what's new is that they don't care who knows about it now.

[WritusMaximus]

Kinda late. They've already in the money. Will take years, no, a century or more to pay all the hundreds of billions these banksters have taken from taxpayers---you will eventually hear the argument straight from the a---er, horses' mouths. Then again, you may hear it from their employees, aka politicians.

[grey32]

The biggest and most important thing I ever figured out was----- get rid of the credit cards. I have one card and I never and I mean NEVER let it go above $1000 dollars. Once I figured that out It seems instead of being "always" broke I actually had money. I have several saving accounts with real money in them and I'm in good shape debt wise. It took discipline and was hard at first but; boy was it worth it.

I have friends that have 40 and 50 thousands dollars just in credit card debt. (Crazy - yes!!) I'd hurl myself off a bridge. Its a tough lesson maybe people are finally willing to learn, maybe not....

[ncmom54]

It's a good time to replace Geithner & Summers with Warren & Spitzer

[pragmaticdallasite]

Hmmmm, may I add Andrew Cuomo?

[ncmom54]

oh wouldn't that be great!

[DrJohnS]

Credit card interest is easily avoided. Don't use them. Encourage your friends and neighbors to stop using them. Start a movement! Oh, wait. That might put a lot of poor bank CEO's out of business. We wouldn't want that. Charge!

[pragmaticdallasite]

YES OK WE GET IT, and the majority of Americans have come to that conclusion, hence the huge jump into positive territory of the national savings rate.

In the meantime however, our legislators should keep them from robbing us on the money we do owe.

[october2009]

You could always file for bankruptcy and stop completely paying them back...

Our legislators shouldn't set price controls. If the clowns in Washington force the credit card companies to charge everybody low interest rates, I can guarantee you that that will create another unsustainable bubble.

Cheap money ALWAYS causes malinvestments and overspending. High interest rates are good because it forces people to save and spend their own money and not take on debt.

We need higher interest rates.

For example, if the Federal Reserve had set higher interest rates, we wouldn't have had the housing bubble that killed our economy. All the cheap money got everybody drunk. We all need to sober up.

[BeyondKen]

Pay the full balance each month.

[dream9]

Good advice. I've had the same Bank of America credit card since 1979. My current limit is over $15,000. Never once asked for an increase. And never once have I carried the balance over to the next month. I've never been rich or well paid. In fact I've been out of work now for three years. Just live within your means.

Even so, the banks need to stop pressing people into debt slavery with their outrageously high rates. They won't do this voluntarily.

[dandypuddin]

One might guess that if you could pay off your balance every month, you wouldn't need to use them in the first place.

[G-guy]

Ms. Warren spelled it out, calmly, and gently, but on the money.
All Americans should wake up and react to being victims of this greed.

People have accepted this corporate scam for years.
If you allow banks and credit card companies to s@rew you, they will.

"Our government wipe our a@ses, too?
Who is that, I hear chirping now?

Yeah, there they go. "Obama's got to fix it".
Where were you when George Bush, and all the corporate cronies
were using YOU, and Americans, as an a@s-wipe, for 8 d@mn years?

Want to make it right? I did, 10 years ago. With no credit card debt, I cut up the plastic,
sent it back to everyone doling it out, and told them to shove it. Don't need them, or their poison.

[conserv47]

Thats right!! Lets KILL all businesses for putting us in this mess. FORGET the fact that it was up to YOU to apply for the credit card. It was up to YOU to use the card thus purchasing something that you otherwise could not afford.

No new law is required here. If you do not want to pay HIGH interest rates which most credit card companies had anyway then do not apply for or use a credit card. Its THAT simple. Again PERSONAL responsibility should be the guide here instead of more laws. Check out David Ramsey. He has a multitude of ideas for the fiscally challenged.

[fumes]

i wish he had let her finish talking at the end.

[jhoughton1]

I agree. He wanted to end it on, "Americans are bad." The fact is, people will get away with what they can get away with. Either peer societal pressure or statutory restraints are needed to keep us all in line. Lift the usury laws in a heterogeneous society like ours, where there's no single morality in force, and there will be usury.
It's Lord of the Flies unless we have some rules, and the rules were taken away.

[ddDinah]

Bill Maher a truly misogynic intellectual…JUST listen to his jokes, they’re stuffed to rafters with misogynic statements.

[DeAnnaClaudette]

Like most comedians, Maher talks about everyone.

[ddDinah]

He may deliver jokes about men, but not in the same manner AT ALL.

[petman2001]

Unless you can point out a specific example in this clip on this topic, what is your point????

[Cullen Stalin]

I agree that Maher is often misogynistic - and he should be criticized in those instances. But i don't see what that has to do with the matter at hand. I don't like his general smugness, but i don't bring it up every time i see his segments, especially when they're right on like this piece is.

[DC]

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=224256&title=intro-bailout-acronyms

[october2009]

I thought we're in this mess because people live beyond their means, spent money they don't have and took on too much debt? So now our government wants people to continue down that same path?

People used to live perfectly well before the advent of credit cards. Don't feed the beast. Save your money and live within your means. Don't put yourself in debt when you don't need to. If your cost of living is too high, just downsize.

Don't buy something you can't afford. Buy in cash. Period.

Our country has become a debt slave to the banks. It's really terrible.

[DeAnnaClaudette]

No dear. If you apply for a credit card and you go out and spend 5,000 that you aren't sure you can pay back.. That's one thing... When you apply for a credit card thinking that your interest rate is going to be 10% and turns out that it's 30%, that's where the problem comes in. No one is condoning people living beyond their means.

[sonofsamphm1c]

Except, raising your rate is the only way they can recoup the $5,000. One of Elizabeth Warren's law students will get the bum out of paying the $5,000, and that means the American family is on the hook for it.

[october2009]

Well if the credit card companies commit fraud by deceiving the public then well.... that's fraud. But my point is, people shouldn't be applying for credit cards. They should just spend the money they earn. Live within your own means. Period.

Also, what gives the politicians the right to tell a private company how much money they can charge to lend out their money? Why are the politicians setting price controls? Don't they realize that that's how we got into this mess?

If the Federal Reserve had set higher interest rates, we wouldn't have had the housing bubble that killed our economy. All the cheap money got everybody drunk.

Low interest rates ALWAYS causes malinvestments and overspending.

High interest rates are good. The higher the interest rate, the less people will take on debt and spend money they don't have. High interest rates forces people to save their own money and take on less debt.

Plus, the individuals who have bad credit, probably deserve to pay higher interest rates... It makes sense to me.

I just see this as another step for our politicians to try to re-inflate our cheap money bubble... And remember every bubble has a bust!

[Sarah2000]

exactly. thank you for clearing that up for them. I so sick and tired of hearing these people that want to place all the blame on the home owners or the credit card owners or the small business owners. Yes sometimes people live beyond their means but the majority of whats going on is that people have been scammed and taken advantage of by the banks and the mortgage companies.

[G-guy]

D@mn straight.

If it's "cash and carry", or nothing, they are beaten.
Nobody can s@rew with you, for any reason. How obvious can that be?

You play that game, you're gonna get played, big time.

You let them hand you a gun, you might as well use it, and blow your brains out.

[ThePeacemakers]

Everybody talking about "people need to live within their means"....true...
But lots of folks here have jobs or had jobs because the only way people were able to afford anything - all that stuff everyone is particpating in the selling, marketing, production, and/or transport of, was with the help of credit. 'Cause Americans sure as hell weren't getting PAID enough cash to keep the economy afloat and the banks solvent.

[october2009]

Our system of credit is unsustainable and is coming to an end.

I agree that it's tough now, but we are going to have to go through a difficult but natural correction.

As much as our politicians want to reinflate the bubble, it's not going to work.

Everything from grocery stores to universities in America can overcharge because they know that people have access to cheap credit. If we had a society that was based on savings instead of debt/ cheap credit, prices would naturally come down to meet the consumer's ability to pay.

Cheap money raises prices for EVERYTHING. Why do you think that home prices went up so high and so fast? It all has to do with cheap money chasing after a set number of goods.

[BabblingBrooks]

Oh great!

Congress says they are looking into this Bernard Madoff scandal too. The guy who made $50 billion disappear is being investigated by people who made $750 billion disappear.

This makes me very confident...

[petman2001]

BTW, the Credit Card Bill of Rights referred to in the clip was defeated resoundly by both Republicans AND Democrats in the Senate. Senate to Credit Card Holders: Drop Dead!

[jwill9981]

The gutless democrats that voted against this bill ought to be waterboarded.

[pragmaticdallasite]

Make them famous, and also those who voted in favor.