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 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 anic 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.
Of course he will.
Obama does not think people should be responsible for themselves; it's the companies faults.
Just like you idiot asses shouldn't have a job unless you are protected by a union. Everyone is out to get you, only the government can protect you.
I see we learn our lessons quickly in the new Amerika.I think there is a profit to be made in lending to low-income working families
Buckle up es!
Last edited by Anti.Hero; 10-01-2008 at 10:16 PM.
C'mon, we have Usury laws for a reason. Why do credit card companies get a free pass?
oh please
It has become abundantly clear for me that many citizens of this country do not have the forsight, or mental capacity to act in their own best interest. If we are a country that is concerned, therefore, about what these people get themselves into, and the plight they then suffer, we have to enact laws to, essentially, protect them from themselves.
This mindset, however, begs the question, as to how we possibly trust these very same people to participate in electing our leaders.
"This mindset, however, begs the question, as to how we possibly trust these very same people to participate in electing our leaders."
BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Spoken like a true American philosopher.
Great quote.
I'm an Obama supporter but I don't like this- I think people should be responsible for themselves and not overspend. That said, the government should do the same- and fighting a pointless war is not being financially responsible in my opinion.
So let me get this straight, you are in favor of charging 30 to 40 percent interest rates so that the debtor can never pay off their debt and be forced into bankruptcy? Screw that!
the reason it is so high is because they probably missed a payment and it's went to default. A normal credit card rate can be 10%-17%, which if you are responsible with credit, you should be able to pay off any balance you might have
I agree with this. It really bothers me that Obama thinks people can't take care of themselves.
I said this in another thread, but he seems so determined to have Americans dependent on the government, and I'm not digging that at all.
It's downright scary!
Very well said!
"how we possibly trust these very same people to participate in electing our leaders."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u6lCBnRoHQ
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