Bernie Sanders has introduced his credit card usury bill with Dick Durbin as a co-sponsor, S.582.

[flpoljunkie]

(Heard Senator Bernie Sanders on Tom Hartman's show yesterday. Sanders said he had introduced his credit card bill with Senator Dick Durbin as co-sponsor, and that he would need us to call our senators and tell them, we support S. 582. The interest will be capped at 15%, the same as credit unions are allowed to charge, expect in a few circumstances when they are allowed to charge a maximum of 18%.)

S.582

Title: A bill to amend the Truth in Lending Act to protect consumers from usury, and for other purposes.

Sponsor: Sen Sanders, Bernard (introduced 3/12/2009) Cosponsors (1)

Latest Major Action: 3/12/2009 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

http://thomas.loc.gov/ (Search for bill by Senators' names)

[flpoljunkie]

1. Edited to add that the maximum allowable rate in their bill will be 15%. See OP for details.

[Danger Mouse]

2. This sounds like a good one.

:hi:

[AllentownJake]

3. Look for our conservative Democratic friends (Bayh, Carper, etc) to block this.

[flpoljunkie]

4. It definitely will not happen without a lot of support from us, the voters, as special interests

will be aligned against it with their lobbyists pressing Senators to vote against S. 582.

[flpoljunkie]

6. Opensecrets.org shows Finance/Iinsurance/Real Estate sectors split money 51% D's-49% R's.

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=F

2008* $458,658,813 $386,324,514 $72,334,299 $232,456,704 $225,271,889 51% D 49% R

[tavalon]

15. I don't know whether it will happen or not and I will certainly do my part

but with the meltdown in the financial industry and credit cards coming right behind them with another tsunami, the companies charging these usurious rates are going to be as destroyed as the giant mortgage companies and the usurious rates are a good part of what have done them in. They have begun reaping what they sowed with the other bill. I'm sad that people are getting hurt in the process but I can't say I'm feeling a whole lot of love for the credit card companies.

[Peace Patriot]

18. "Conservative" in current usage = radical fascist. 'Leaders' who want 30-40% interest rates

squeezing--nay, destroying--the poor, no health care for the poor, cuts in education and all social programs, but of course no cuts in the war and police state budgets, plenty of money and profiteering in jailing the poor for long sentences on non-violent charges (such as drug possession or trade), enticing the poor into the military as cannon fodder for corporate resource wars, because there are no other jobs--good jobs all outsourced to the cheapest labor markets abroad--who never saw a tax cut for the rich and the corporate they didn't like, who permit corporate lobbyists to write our laws, and who fully support the global corporate predator agenda against the interests of the American people.

This is VERY radical. It is Mussolini fascist radicalism--the welding of the state and corporate interests. It is NOT conservative--by any reasonable definition of the word, nor by any political definition of the concept that I have ever seen. The "Blue Dog" Democratic colluders in this radical fascism are NOT conservatives.

I know this is difficult, as to usage--because of the ways that the corpo/fascist press (and their fascist 'think tanks') have quite deliberately twisted our political language. But we should be wary as to accepting their terms. It is by their twistings of words (such as "conservative" and "family values"--or "liberal" and "socialist") that they get into our heads--even the heads of the most alert among us--and are able to write false narratives about our politics and government that seem to have plausibility.

How I would define conservative: A conservative first of all conserves--for instance, protects the savings of poor and rich alike in safe, reliable savings & loans institutions. Right there, the Reaganites veered away from any real conservatism, by permitting the rampant looting of S&Ls. A conservative fosters small business--the backbone of our communities, and the biggest job creator in the country. But these radical fascists parading as "conservatives" have permitted gigantic transglobal corporate monopolies to destroy small businesses and the communities they serve. Right now, the gigantic oil monopolies are destroying the trucking business (often a small business--trucker-owned trucks), the tourist industry, and the small business mail order industry, with gas gouging. That is NOT conservative. That is radical-destructive. The Republicans in California--and even Nixon--supported environmental regulation, to conserve our natural resources. These radical fascists have done the opposite--they support corporate rape and ruin, and oppose all environmental regulation. Real conservatives support a balanced budget--NOT the unbelievably profligate, out of control spending of the Bushwhacks--spending us into bankruptcy and collapse!

I could go on, but you see what I mean. The core word "conserve" has been sliced out of the word "conservative" in current, rightwing-dictated usage. We should be leery of letting them continue to co-opt this word, as if they had some benign purpose. What the Puke "conservatives" and their Democratic "Blue Dog" colluders advocate is quite radical, quite disruptive of civil order, anti-democratic, unamerican, traitorous and fascist.

[invictus]

44. Exactly! The modern Republican Party is a fascist organization! n/t

[invictus]

46. .

nt

[mucifer]

5. Be prepared for the corporate press to ignore the issue so people don't put

pressure on congress.

[flpoljunkie]

7. I expect them to totally ignore S.582. Perhaps Jack Cafferty, Rachel Maddow would promote bill.

[vaberella]

32. Let's put some heat on their arses?! I'll let Rangle and Schumer know.

I really don't trust the new girl for some reason. But I might say something to her so she could get her feet wet.

[Thrill]

8. If Durbin is sponsoring it. Obama must of already gave the ok he will sign it

[flpoljunkie]

11. Let us hope that is the case.

[vaberella]

31. I hope so...I hope so. n/t

[hamsterjill]

40. Perhaps Obama will mention it in a presser?

That would put some attention on this bill since I agree that the mainstream media will completely ignore it.

[flpoljunkie]

42. That would be incredibly helpful, but frankly, I do not expect him to do so.

Making 15% the maximum allowable credit card interest rate would be most definitely be 'change we could believe in!'

[Laelth]

9. Good news. Hope it passes. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[progressoid]

10. You mean the rates it used to be before we decided to let corporations make their own rules?

And write the laws?

[LuckyLib]

12. Those rates exactly -- before the foxes got in the henhouse. The cc companies have been authorized

to rip us off for years now. It's time to turn off that spigot.

[flpoljunkie]

13. Yes, when credit was deregulated in the early 1980's. The great Elizabeth Warren on the subject...

What's changed is when credit was deregulated in the early 1980s, the contracts began to shift. And what happens is that the big issuers, the credit card companies who have the team of lawyers, started writing contracts that effectively said, "Here are some of the terms, and the rest of the terms will be whatever we want them to be." And so they would loan to someone at 9.9 percent interest. That's what it said on the front of the envelope. But it was 9.9 percent interest ... unless you lost your job, or 9.9 percent interest unless you applied for a couple of other credit cards, or 9.9 percent interest unless you defaulted on some other obligation somewhere else that doesn't cost me a nickel. And at that moment, that 9.9 percent interest credit suddenly morphs to 24.9 percent interest, 29.9 percent interest, 36.9 percent interest. Well, you know, ... nobody signs contracts to buy things that say, "I'm going to pay you $1,200 for the big-screen TV unless you decide, in another month or two months, that it should really be $3,600 or $4,200 or $4,800." But that's precisely how credit card contracts are written today.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/interviews/warren.html

[starroute]

17. Things started changing even in the 70's

Credit card interest rates used to be really low -- but they went up during the double-digit inflation of the 70's because the credit card companies argued that they had to stay at least a few points ahead of the inflation rate.

That seemed to make sense at the time -- but the trouble was, they never came down. Having gotten Americans used to paying 18% interest on their cards, the companies saw no reason not to stick with it. That's where the Reagan deregulations came in.

Somewhere around the same time, the interest you got on your own savings account plunged. This is one of the things that really forced people into 401k's and such, aside from the decline of traditional pension plans. There was a time when you could put your savings into the bank and assume that the wonders of compound interest would assure you a nice little nest egg by the time you retired. Now you're lucky to even keep up with the fake inflation rate that the government puts out to keep down social security increases and tax bracket adjustments, let alone the real one.

Of course, the other thing that happened in the 70's was that the US economy basically stagnated, so corporations turned to exploiting their workers and their customers instead of merely providing a service and taking a modest fee. Reagan prospered in the 80's and Gingrich in the 90's by convincing Americans that economic stagnation was the fault of a bloated and over-intrusive government sector and that deregulation could fix everything.

That argument had a certain immediate appeal -- and for a time deregulation did seem able to promote certain forms of economic growth. But it's taken this long for it to become apparent that Reaganoid growth is unsustainable, depends more on exploiting citizens and the environment than on real increases in total wealth, and requires a succession of financial bubbles to keep the sham going.

In the 70's and 80's most of us were pretty economically illiterate, so we were willing to accept solutions that sounded easy and plausible. Even those who didn't like the social costs of the Reaganoid answers were poorly equipped to fight back against them on purely economic grounds.

I hope that this time around we'll all be smarter -- and that we'll be prepared to base everything in models that recognize the basic fact of existence on this planet is not growth but sustainability and that "wealth" is not something hotshot businessmen can create out of nowhere but is a relatively fixed measure of the planet's energy availability. Once you do that, things like 30% interest rates become simply ludicrous.

[progressoid]

27. More damage from the Great Reagan.

[Canuckistanian]

14. Exactly. And Bernie said that the 15% rate was chosen specifically

Because that's what Credit Unions are limited to - and they seem to be doing fine.

[wroberts189]

30. Ya know its always encouraging to know I am not the only one who remembers..

The days when congress was not writing the bills they passed.

[bottomtheweaver]

16. Good move.

I'd be happy to see interest limited to 5%, or abolished. Nothing in the Constitution about interest one way or the other.

[hugo_from_TN]

19. Why would anyone lend you money if they got zero interest on it?

While limiting exorbitant interest rates is good, there is no doubt that it will reduce the number of people who will be able to obtain a credit card. I'm sure many people will have their credit line shut down.

[Waiting For Everyman]

20. That's happening now, so where is the logic for it coming from?

15% is way too high. 7% would be high enough, when Fed Funds are near zero. But it should be for all interest, not just credit cards.

It's simple for "investors" - take the safe low profit, or go play with the wolves at your own risk.

[flpoljunkie]

21. Fifteen percent would be the maximum allowable--far better than what's allowed by law today.

[RepublicanElephant]

23. yeah, like high school and college students. nt

[dickthegrouch]

22. I'd like to see them pay the same fees and interest as us

When the tables are turned, if their bill arrives late, I want to see $30 late fees.
If by some ghastly mischance (:sarcasm:) I should happen to be in credit with them, I want to see them paying me 25% interest.

I'd gladly 'bank' with them if they offered me the same rates on the other side as they are charging when things are in their favor.

[totodeinhere]

24. This is a great bill. I will be calling both of my senators. n/t

[Sebastian Doyle]

25. For those of you who live in Bible Belt states

Remind your senators what God says about usury, and that He would want them to support this bill!

http://www.tentmaker.org/lists/UsuryScriptureList.html

[LittleBlue]

26. Bravo, Bernie. Calling it "usury" is especially powerful.

Thanks

[snowbear]

28. Love Bernie & Durbie

.
.

~~~

[wroberts189]

29. So will the "new democrats" or so called moderates oppose this?

This will be interesting.

[cascadiance]

33. How will new Delaware senator Kaufman replacing Biden come down on this?

Biden could get away playing games for the credit card companies with his heavy support for the bankruptcy bill, with a lot of other history in the Senate that he could point to to cover up his misdeeds with this bill.

But Kaufman could endanger another Democratic seat if he follows suit and supports the credit card companies in this bill or other bills that try to reverse the bankruptcy bill. And you KNOW the CC Company K Street crowd from those "Delaware" Credit Card Companies is putting HEAVY pressure on him to do this.

But with the state of the economy, and the fact that Kaufman is one of the newest members of congress without much else on his track record could make himself a one term senator or hurt other parts of the Democratic Party in Delaware if he continues Biden's strategy of placating their interests. That would NOT be a good thing for us in many ways.

All those folks in Delaware should call Kauffman and put HEAVY pressure on him to listen to the people instead of the Credit Card Company lobbyists if he knows what's good for himself.

[flpoljunkie]

34. How refreshing it would be if Senators served the public interest, rather the special interests who

finance their campaigns. Click link to see how how much financial, insurance and real estate gave to Congress in the 2008 cycle at a rate of 51% to Dems and 49% to Rethugs.

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=F

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

38. Those "special interests" you speak of are the largest employers in DE.

That Biden, Carper, or Kaufman would vote with the credit card companies actually is in line with the interests of their people. It may not be YOUR interests, but you'll forgive them for wanting to keep jobs in the state.

[flpoljunkie]

41. Actually, no. Credit card companies can make money without gouging people.

[anonymous171]

35. KICK nt .

[invictus]

36. K&R

nt

[OwnedByFerrets]

37. Call your Senators NOW!!

[flpoljunkie]

39. Thanks, OwnedByFerrets.

It would not hurt to email them, as well. Go to their websites.

For example: http://feingold.senate.gov

[marlakay]

43. Won't they just add more fees to cover it?

Shorten even more the time people have to pay each month? I guess its a good start but I can't see it passing, corporations still own most of congress.

[flpoljunkie]

45. Good point. Congress needs to rein in excessive fees and penalties charged by credit card companies

Banks, as well.

[invictus]

47. Kick! Call your representatives!

nt

[Raineyb]

48. Senators Gillibrand and Schumer contacted

Both have been e-mailed and I called Senator Gillibrand's office. I will be looking for Schumer's number to call his office.

Regards

[LittleBlue]

49. We should all support this

K&R for greatness.