Indazone
10-01-2008, 10:06 PM
WILL OBAMA TAKE ON CREDIT CARD USURY?
If Obama takes on this issue, one the Progressive Review has long pushed, it would be his first strong move in the economic area and unique in modern traditional politics.
ABC NEWS (http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5174993) One of the more ambitious ideas [Obama] is considering, according to a campaign spokeswoman, would be to restore government regulation of credit card interest rates. The government has not been involved in interest rate regulation for 30 years, after a Supreme Court ruling blocked states from effectively engaging in the practice. . .
Stricter regulation of interest rates would likely provoke a titanic struggle with the credit card industry, which would argue that the government should not meddle in the free market. But advocates of re-regulating interest rates argue that this change is needed to prevent more families from falling into bankruptcy.
As part of his "Change That Works for You" tour, Obama held a roundtable talk in Chicago last week with three consumers apparently gouged by the credit card industry. He was joined at the event by Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren, the nation's leading advocate of re-regulating credit card interest rates.
"The key is that you need to break the cycle of no regulation," Warren told ABC News. "Currently, the states can't regulate and the federal government won't. So there are two ways to fix that: Either let the states do the regulating or put some regulation in at the federal level."
Harvard Law School professor David Wilkins introduced Warren to Obama when the Democratic senator from Illinois was getting ready to run for the U.S. Senate in 2004. . .
Warren says that she has not directly discussed the reimposition of usury laws with Obama, but she hopes that he will take up the cause if elected. . .
If Obama goes beyond studying ways to more strictly regulate interest rates to actually proposing such=2 0changes, credit card companies are sure to argue that such a move would dry up credit for higher-risk borrowers.
Warren dismisses such arguments.
"That is the most astonishing claim that I can imagine a corporate representative making," said Warren. "Let me retranslate it: 'If I can't trick these people and fool these people about the actual cost of credit, then I can't make a profit off of them, and I will stop lending it."
"To state the question is to answer it," she continued.
"The truth is," she said, "I think there is a profit to be made in lending to low-income working families. ... There are lenders who do it every day."
He's got my vote if he does this. I am sick of the credit card companies jacking with us with their 20-28 percent interest rates. How is anyone supposed to pay of their cards at that kind of rate?
Bail out the banks and regulate the credit card companies from issuing bad loans with ridiculous interest rates. If the gov't made the interest rates lower, the credit card companies would be a lot more careful about who they gave out credit to. It would also help main street pay off debts and save money.
If Obama takes on this issue, one the Progressive Review has long pushed, it would be his first strong move in the economic area and unique in modern traditional politics.
ABC NEWS (http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5174993) One of the more ambitious ideas [Obama] is considering, according to a campaign spokeswoman, would be to restore government regulation of credit card interest rates. The government has not been involved in interest rate regulation for 30 years, after a Supreme Court ruling blocked states from effectively engaging in the practice. . .
Stricter regulation of interest rates would likely provoke a titanic struggle with the credit card industry, which would argue that the government should not meddle in the free market. But advocates of re-regulating interest rates argue that this change is needed to prevent more families from falling into bankruptcy.
As part of his "Change That Works for You" tour, Obama held a roundtable talk in Chicago last week with three consumers apparently gouged by the credit card industry. He was joined at the event by Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren, the nation's leading advocate of re-regulating credit card interest rates.
"The key is that you need to break the cycle of no regulation," Warren told ABC News. "Currently, the states can't regulate and the federal government won't. So there are two ways to fix that: Either let the states do the regulating or put some regulation in at the federal level."
Harvard Law School professor David Wilkins introduced Warren to Obama when the Democratic senator from Illinois was getting ready to run for the U.S. Senate in 2004. . .
Warren says that she has not directly discussed the reimposition of usury laws with Obama, but she hopes that he will take up the cause if elected. . .
If Obama goes beyond studying ways to more strictly regulate interest rates to actually proposing such=2 0changes, credit card companies are sure to argue that such a move would dry up credit for higher-risk borrowers.
Warren dismisses such arguments.
"That is the most astonishing claim that I can imagine a corporate representative making," said Warren. "Let me retranslate it: 'If I can't trick these people and fool these people about the actual cost of credit, then I can't make a profit off of them, and I will stop lending it."
"To state the question is to answer it," she continued.
"The truth is," she said, "I think there is a profit to be made in lending to low-income working families. ... There are lenders who do it every day."
He's got my vote if he does this. I am sick of the credit card companies jacking with us with their 20-28 percent interest rates. How is anyone supposed to pay of their cards at that kind of rate?
Bail out the banks and regulate the credit card companies from issuing bad loans with ridiculous interest rates. If the gov't made the interest rates lower, the credit card companies would be a lot more careful about who they gave out credit to. It would also help main street pay off debts and save money.