Tag: Credit Cards

Plastic Surgery.

“‘This is landmark legislation that is going to make the credit card marketplace more transparent and more fair for millions of consumers,’ said Travis B. Plunkett, legislative director for the Consumer Federation of America. ‘In particular, it’s going to prevent credit card companies from suddenly and unjustly increasing interest rates which is pushing many consumers with credit card debt into bankruptcy.’” The Senate passes legislation aimed at reining in the more blatant and arbitrary instances of credit card usury by a vote of 90-5, with a bill expected on President Obama’s desk by Memorial Day.

This sounds like a clear step in the right direction…but funny how times change, isn’t it? It doesn’t seem like all that long ago that many of these same Senators passed the 2005 bankruptcy bill, which dug the financial hole deeper for millions of Americans in the name of an easy buck for the credit card industry. Better late than never, I suppose.

Bare Stearns. | We are all NOLA?

“The Wall Street titans have turned into a bunch of welfare clients. They are desperate to be bailed out by government from their own incompetence, and from the deregulatory regime for which they lobbied so hard…It’s just fine to make it harder for the average Joe to file for bankruptcy, as did that wretched bankruptcy bill passed by Congress in 2005 at the request of the credit card industry. But the big guys are ‘too big to fail’ because they could bring us all down with them.” After the Bear Stearns deal and all it would seem to portent about the condition of the Dubya economy, E.J. Dionne reads the riot act to free market fundies.

In related news, WP’s Dan Froomkin’s notes how Dubya’s handling of the economy is now being compared to the aftermath of Katrina. ‘As the storm clouds gathered, was President Bush once again asleep at the wheel? A consistent theme in today’s political and economic coverage is that Bush’s failure to recognize the severity of the ongoing financial crisis and act accordingly is reminiscent of his disastrously slow and inept response to Hurricane Katrina….’As with the war in Afghanistan, the Iraqi war aftermath, the Hurricane Katrina disaster and current efforts at Mideast peace, investors are concerned that the president is responding too late and with inadequate understanding, resources and creativity.'”

Going down swinging.

Four days out from Zero Hour and as per the kitchen sink strategy, the Clinton campaign attempts a few more sad gambits to stay alive in the race…

  • Fearmongering: It’s 3am and your children are safe and asleep, but there’s a phone in the White House and it’s ringing…” Sen. Clinton has a new terror, terror, terror ad out in Texas, suggesting an Obama presidency will result in all manner of horrible things disrupting the sleep of your dear children. (It echoes this old Mondale spot, by the same ad guru twenty-four years ago.) Sen. Obama responded here: “We’ve seen these ads before. They’re the kind that play on peoples’ fears to scare up votes…We’ve had a red phone moment. It was the decision to invade Iraq. And Senator Clinton gave the wrong answer. George Bush gave the wrong answer. John McCain gave the wrong answer.” Update: If this seems like a McCain ad, that might be because it was one, a fan-made ad back in January. (Then again, LBJ did it too.) Update 2: The Obama campaign already has a response ad out.

  • Moving the Goalposts (again): Flying in the face of reality once again, the newest Clinton campaign spin gets silly: “With an eleven state winning streak coming out of February, Senator Obama is riding a surge of momentum that has enabled him to pour unprecedented resources into Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. If he cannot win all of these states with all this effort, there’s a problem.” Uh, no. Quite the contrary. The math hasn’t changed since Wisconsin. Sen. Clinton must not only win Texas and Ohio, but win them both by twenty points. Anything less, and her campaign is mathematically kaput. (The reason for this goofiness from the campaign? Rhode Island looks to be an easy Clinton pick-up.)

  • Shady lawyering: “It has been brought to my attention that one or both of your campaigns may already be planning or intending to pursue litigation against the Texas Democratic Party…Such action could prove to be a tragedy for a reinvigorated Democratic process.” Texas Dem sources say the Clinton campaign has — in keeping with their strategy in Nevada last month — threatened a lawsuit to disrupt the caucus process there. Camp Clinton has backed away from these threats since they leaked, but sources maintain Clinton is suggesting legal action to cast doubt on the Texas caucus results on Tuesday night, thereby possibly buying her campaign a media cycle or two before the inevitable happens.

    Granted, I’m a partisan. But I really don’t see any of these working to Sen. Clinton’s advantage. In fact, they just make her and her campaign look that much more petty. (See also the newest playing of the gender card: “‘Every so often I just wish that it were a little more of an even playing field,’ she said, ‘but, you know, I play on whatever field is out there.’” Aw, it’s hard out here for the wife of a popular, two-term ex-president!) Update: In the meantime, Sen. Obama has picked up four more supers.

    Update 2: Let’s see…what else does the Clinton campaign have under the kitchen sink? How ’bout some misleading mailers? (Gasp! Tough mailers? Shame on you, Hillary Clinton!) In any case, one claims “Barack Obama voted against protecting American families from predatory credit card interest rates of more than 30 percent.” As Obama said in a previous debate, he opposed the bill because “thought 30 percent potentially was too high of a ceiling. So we had had no hearings on that bill. It had not gone through the Banking Committee.” (Lest we forget, Sen. Clinton actually voted for the lender-friendly bankruptcy bill in 2001.) The other basically suggests Obama is a corporate stooge on the payroll of the energy companies. Left unsaid: Sen. Clinton has taken more donations from the energy industry.

    • Inconvenient Truths | Convenient Gaming

    And, while I’m snarfing links from other blogs, two choice entries from PlasticBag: (1) A rather lame “amateur” anti-Gore YouTube video turns out to be the work of GOP agit-prop artists, likely at the behest of Exxon; and (2) to keep up with the times, everyone’s favorite real estate robber baron simulation, Monopoly, is forsaking the multicolored cash for debit cards. “It is inserted into an electronic machine where the banker taps in cardholders’ earnings and payments.“

    Shields Down.

    “A House Republican leadership aide said that the automatic-dismissal rule is ‘the rule that is most commonly believed to be designed to protect Tom DeLay’ and that it was ‘impossible to win the communications battle’ on it.” Sensing that the (lack of) ethics issue was causing them real damage, and perhaps perturbed by the recent revelations involving Casino Jack’s credit card and gift-giving streak, the House GOP plan to rescind the recent rule change passed in January to protect Boss DeLay from any real ethics inquiry. Looks like palling around with Dubya yesterday didn’t change the Hammer’s fortunes much. Update: Hastert officially announces the rules changes.

    Morally Bankrupt, pt. II.

    Even as the fundies rattle the leash, the House moves to placate the GOP’s real masters by approving the corporate-friendly bankruptcy bill 302-126. “Its passage by Congress is a victory for executives in the credit card, retail and auto financing industries who have pushed it for nearly a decade.” But, not to worry, y’all — the base is protected: The bill “preserve[s] loopholes that enable wealthy individuals who file for bankruptcy to shield unlimited amounts of money in complex trusts and in multimillion-dollar homes in states including Texas and Florida.”

    “Morally Bankrupt.”

    “So what does the bill do? It makes it harder for average people to file for bankruptcy protection; it makes it easier for landlords to evict a bankrupt tenant; it endangers child-support payments by giving a wider array of creditors a shot at post-bankruptcy income; it allows millionaires to shield an unlimited amount of equity in homes and asset-protection trusts; it makes it more difficult for small businesses to reorganize while opening new loopholes for the Enrons of the world; it allows creditors to provide misleading information; and it does nothing to rein in lending abuses that frequently turn manageable debt into unmanageable crises. Even in failure, ordinary Americans do not get a level playing field.” Salon‘s Arianna Huffington ably dissects the GOP bankruptcy legislation currently making its way through Congress. Update: It passes the Senate, with the help of 18 Dems. For shame.

    The Next to Fall?

    The plot thickens…just when the stock market really doesn’t need any more bad news, turns out Citigroup helped Enron evade the law to clear $125 million in debt. Shameful…struggle to get by, and Citibank screws you with exorbitant credit interest rates. Live on the high hog, and they cut you an (illegal) sweetheart deal. Update: J.P. Morgan is in the mix too.