Last week, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, got on his knees before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and begged her to pass a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street.
Paulson embodied the entire banking industry, on its knees after FAILING US AND DESTROYING OUR ECONOMY, begging this Congress to take YOUR MONEY and give it to them...$700 billion of YOUR MONEY.
Now that every sign points to a speedy capitulation to the banking industry, the banks have resumed their swagger. Executives at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Edward Yingling, of the American Bankers Association, have begun an insidious campaign to strip the bailout of any protections for the very taxpayers this bailout defrauds.
Democrats in the House tacked H.R. 5244 into the bailout, passing it by a vote of 312-112. The resolution would protect Americans from the type of predatory lending that led to the catastrophic failure of our markets...that WILL LEAD TO ANOTHER CATASTROPHIC FAILURE IF CONGRESS ALLOWS IT.
Yingling and the vultures at JPMorgan oppose the resolution. "In today's turbulent economic times, consumers deserve a careful and balanced approach when considering potential changes to consumer credit and the credit card industry," read a statement released by JPMorgan.
It's the type of double-speak that lately governs our country: "careful and balanced" being a euphamism for an environment wherein banks may dupe and defraud as many customers as possible.
The resolution, H.R. 5244 would give Americans a fighting chance to manage their money prudently. It would require the banks to warn Joe Taxpayer that his interest rates will increase with at least 45 days advance notice.
Let's say Joe typically pays $300 per month on his credit cards. Suddenly his bill calls for $400 or $500 and Joe is not prepared. Joe loses his home, 2 million suffer the same fate and in three years we're bailing out the banks all over again!!!!!
The banking industry is ginning up its rhetoric. What a fight! They hope to pass the biggest swindle on U.S. taxpayers in the history of the United States and simultaneously strip the bailout of any quid pro quo.
Read the following from the LA Times, which broke this news:
More double-speak and intellectually dishonest reasoning from the banking industry:
"We are very concerned that this bill [H.R. 5244] would significantly hinder our ability to price the risks of lending and would result in less credit being made available to creditworthy borrowers at the worst possible time, with generally higher prices for those who do receive credit," said Bank of America Corp. spokeswoman Betty Riess.
Nonsense.
"They're using the I'll-take-my-toys-and-go-home argument," said Linda Sherry, a spokeswoman for Consumer Action. "But that won't be the case. They'll keep fighting for our business."
She said banks would still be able to offer competitive terms for preferred customers. And for riskier customers, she said, banks could still raise rates or even do the unthinkable: turn them down for cards.
Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. According to the Consumer Federation of America, the 50 million U.S. households that carry a credit card balance from month to month face an average debt load of $17,000.
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