The Rich Are Different. They Have Jobs
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Goldman Sachs, one of the Wall Street firms that got the H1N1 flu shot well ahead of millions of America’s school children, sent this health tip in a memo to its pampered, out-of-touch execs: “Resist the urge to open your own car door; let your driver do it.”
Yo, Jeeves. While you’re at it, dust around the edges of those massive CEO pay packages. Because according to a report released today by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), top executives at four companies that jettisoned their employee pension plans received $49.5 million in retirement and severance benefits in the years before the companies filed for bankruptcy, while retirees saw their benefits cut by as much as two-thirds.
Yet Wall Street bankers are making that cash flow keeps coming: Yesterday, writes David Dayen, Senate Republicans bowed low before their corporate masters and delayed a move by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) to immediately take up a bill that would freeze all credit card rates, charges and fee increases.
Bill Now in the Senate Addresses Credit Card Abuse
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If you have a credit card, and most of us have more than one, you’ve likely opened a monthly bill and seen your interest rate jump, even if you have an on-time payment record. Or worse: A company will increase the interest rate on a card raised because you’re not using it enough.
Then there’s the fine print, fees, penalties and changes in the rules that credit companies are piling on consumers, usually buried in a legalese-loaded notice too small to read without a magnifying glass.
A bill that could come to a U.S. Senate vote this week—debate starts Monday with a vote expected Wednesday—would put an end to deceptive and abusive credit card practices that are hurting honest and hard working families.
The AFL-CIO, Union Privilege, the Consumers Union and dozens of consumer, civil rights and community groups are urging the Senate to pass S. 414, the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act.
Educating Timothy Geithner: The Congressional Review Panel on Capitol Hill
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The American people worry about how their $590 billion in taxpayer money is being spent in the big bank bailout—and, on Capitol Hill today, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was told why. In his first appearance before the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP), which has spent nearly six months reviewing the expenditures of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), COP chairwoman Elizabeth Warren told Geithner:
People are angry that even if they have paid their bills on time consistently and never missed a payment, their TARP-assisted banks are unilaterally raising their interest rates or slashing their credit lines….People are angry when they read headlines of record foreclosures because even if they aren’t personally facing trouble with their mortgages, they see their own property worth less and their communities declining as a result of the foreclosures all around them.
I appreciate your repeatedly stated commitment to transparency and accountability…but more remains to be done. People need to understand why you are making the choices you are making.
Obama Calls for Credit Card Protections
President Barack Obama said yesterday the nation needs tougher laws to protect consumers who use credit cards. Replying to a question at a town hall meeting in Costa Mesa, Calif., Obama pointed to a study by Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard professor and chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP).
There’s a woman named Elizabeth Warren…who did a great deal of study around this. And she made a simple point…if you bought a toaster, and the toaster blew up in your face, there would be a law, a consumer safety law, that would protect you from buying that toaster. But if you get a credit card that blows up in your face, that starts off at zero-percent interest…and suddenly, it’s 29 percent; and if you’re late two days, suddenly you just paid another $30—well, somehow that’s okay.
I think generally having some consumer safety, some consumer protection around credit cards, is important.
Obama was referring to one of the COP’s recommendations to Congress in its recent report on the need for regulatory reform of the financial system. Those recommendations reflect many reforms proposed by the AFL-CIO.
