This is probably your Senator. Don’t bother him. He’s busy counting his Banking and Credit Card Industry contributions. So, screw you.
Just in case you were having a delusional moment whereby you imagined that the Senate actually represents you, the Senate has flatly rejected a 15% cap on credit card rates. These people are despicable, greedy co-conspirators.
Despite complaints that banks and credit card companies are gouging customers by charging outrageous interest rates, the Senate on Wednesday easily turned back an effort to cap interest rates at 15 percent.
The effort by Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, drew only 33 votes and needed 60, with a bipartisan group of 60 senators opposing it as the Senate pushed its credit card overhaul toward the finish line. Some Democrats and consumer groups have said that an interest cap is needed to put real teeth into an otherwise solid bill.
And guess who was right there making -ching promi$e$ to greedy $enators while they deliberated over this bill?
The banking industry, which had some heavy-weight representatives monitoring the vote off of the Senate floor, warned that an interest rate limit could cause a sour reaction in the financial markets.
These bums really all need to get their asses kicked out of the Senate like yesterday. They are OWNED by lobbyists. OWNED. Fully OWNED.
This time I actually agree with the otherwise Communist Bernie Sanders.
But Mr. Sanders said the card companies and banks were engaged in conduct that could get others hauled into court. He said one-third of all credit card holders are paying interest above 20 percent and as high as 41 percent.
“When banks are charging 30 percent interest rates, they are not making credit available,” said Mr. Sanders, who noted credit unions are limited to 15 percent. “They are engaged in loan-sharking.”
He is exactly right. I remember when people went to jail for Loan Sharking. Now these criminals are BFFs to our Senators. Birds of a feather flock together. I simply cannot believe that America continues to elect these Extortionists-By-Proxy. And then they wonder why even Socialism actually looks better than they do.
I’m sure we won’t be hearing from Credit Card Joe Biden on this. His Delaware buddies are very happy. And here’s another “Honest Man”. This scandal-riddled blowass member of “Friends of Angelo Mozilo” is in charge of the Banking Committee of all things:
After the effort failed, Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, the Democratic chairman of the banking committee, proposed that the Federal Reserve be asked to provide an analysis of how Congress could rein in interest rates.
As soon as I find out which of these thieves refused to vote for a cap, I will publish their despicable names. Then we call all ask every blogger we know to also publish their names. In huge red font.
***Update***: The amendment will not make it to the final bill because they were only able to get 33 senators to commit to a Yes vote. 60 are needed. Here are the names of the Senators who supported the bill via Roll Call vote. Everybody else stuck it in your nose. If your Senator’s name is not on this list, I suggest you pay him or her a nice email visit and get all your friends to do the same:
Voted Yes:
Burris, Durbin, Sanders, Feingold, Schumer, Lautenberg, Webb, Dodd, Casey, Merkley, Conrad, Dorgan, Gillibrand, Harkin, Inouye, Kerry, Klobuchar, Levin, McCaskill, Menendez, Reed, Reid, the two Udalls, and Wyden. Grassley was the only Republican to vote yes. (h/t to Grayslady for the list)
This is the legislation submitted by Bernie Sanders. Co Sponsors: Sen. Patrick Leahy, Sen. Richard Durbin, Sen. Carl Levin, Shel Sheldon Whitehouse, Sen. Thomas Harkin
This is the Committee it was sent to: Members are Sen. Chris “VIP Interest Rate” Dodd, Sen. Richard Shelby, Sen. Daniel Akaka, Sen. Evan Bayh, Sen. Robertl Bennet, Sen. Sherrod Brown, Sen. Jim Bunning, Sen. Bob Corker, Sen. Michael Crapo, Sen. Jim DeMint, Token Female Sen. Kay Hutchinson, Sen. Mike Johanns, Sen. Tim Johnson, Sen. Herbert Kohl, Sen. Mel Martinez, Sen. Robert Menendez, Sen. Jeff Merkley, Sen. John Reed, Sen. Charles Schumer, Sen. John Tester, Sen. David Vitter. Sen. Mark Warner.
Filed under: Uncategorized |
--Graphic by Freedom Fairy
"This is not culture. This is not custom. This is criminal."
Uppity Woman 
“The banking industry, which had some heavy-weight representatives monitoring the vote off of the Senate floor, warned that an interest rate limit could cause a sour reaction in the financial markets.”
OK – Monitoring the vote off the Senate Floor conjures images of a bunch of Don Corleone ‘s slapping their blackjacks in their palms as the vote was taken….
I am surprised it wasn’t reported that all those Senators who voted in THEIR FAVOR, not ours, left with pee stains in their pants….
Coupled with “warns” and “Sour reaction” it clearly interprets to “Campaign Donations” and “we will tank the Market. Got that?”
ALL of these people should go to jail. I mean the Senators. Then the Justice Department could take care of Dodd and the Credit Card vultures…..
I can’t wait to see the list. We will spread it far and wide.
Looking forward to seeing that list, Uppity.
Things are going too far with our government. It’s total and complete corruption!!!!
Here’s one senator’s comment about the bill:
Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah said he hadn’t studied the bill but said he was “really concerned” that it could threaten access to credit.
“I appreciate our colleagues trying to always straighten out everything with legislation, but … sometimes I think we over-regulate, over-legislate,” he said.
I can’t wait to see the list, I promise to do my part in spreading it around.
There is absolutely no reason for such high interest rates when the prime rate is at 0%. Personally I think they should only be allowed to charge a certain amount higher than the prime rate ever. I understand banks are in business to make money but some of the credit cards are definitely moving into loan shark territory and consumers are left with no protection thanks to the buffoons in DC.
NS- I agree – or how about the T-Bill rate, like ARM’s and other mortgages USED to be…
that might make these idiots think twice before they continue there efforts to completely tank the country with THEIR (x4) Bush Era overspending. The only retirement I have is currently (mostly) in US Treasuries. They used to be safe. Now…..? Maybe I could trade them for a few chopstix and noodles….
Off topic but I have to mention it. I am listening to another Dr. Mark Segal(?) on TV saying if we get the government involved in health care nobody will be able to get dialysis or pacemakers.
This all reminds me of what they did to HIllary. Next we will see those harry and louise commercials.
Somebody Special……
Credit should NOT be available to people who clearly can’t pay. The rest of the country should have easy access to credit and we all know it.
Secondly, what good is ‘access’ to credit if you never get to pay the principal back because of the interest rate?
I updated this post.
Basically the final bill will be worthless to their constituents since it fails to address the one MAJOR complaint, namely interest rate gouging.
Of course they wouldn’t want anyone to know who they are. They already know people are looking to vote them out of office!
Uppity, it was a roll call vote. If you go to Thomas, you can see the list of people who supported Bernie’s amendment. My two Illinois senators supported it; so did Feingold, Schumer, Lautenberg, the new Democratic senator from Alaska, Jim Webb, Chris Dodd, the two CA senators, Casey, Merkley, Conrad, Dorgan, Gillibrand, Harkin, Inouye, Kerry, Klobuchar, Levin, McCaskill, Menendez, Reed and Reid, the two Udalls, and Wyden. Grassley was the only Republican to vote yes.
Yes I couldn’t think of the name Grays. Roll Call. Thanks for the list! I will update.
I wonder how many Democrats had to agree to vote “Nay” before “Wall St.” Dodd and “The people don’t care how we spend their money” Schumer felt it was safe to vote “Yes”? You can bet your last (worthless) dollar in your 401k that they didn’t support it until they knew there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell that it wouldn’t go down in flames.
Don’t know where to post this…prob not here…but did you see this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/us/14explorers.html?_r=1
Holy shit.
Is this some kind of boy scout ROTC or something?
Another peep out of the maggotry…same deal, different day.
On the National Teen Guard or whatever it is–how’d you like the iron they were carrying? Cool, huh?
Oh–and only 150 people fell out waiting in 105 degree heat for their fearless leader at ASU. And even THOSE, shunted to some air conditioned place with a a screen, were in hog heaven hearing him talk about how he was changing the world.
Or is it training for Obowma’s Civilian Police Force…
Didn’t think of that. Could be. Pretty sure those tots won’t be waterboarded like Army Rangers, tho.
These guys are such idiots. Arrggggg…..
I’ve been fighting with the 3 big credit reporting agencies because they have four things on my credit report that aren’t mine, and don’t even match my name or soc sec number. You would think it would be simple case of pointing out their clerical error and moving on. Au contraire. These people think they’re God and in reality you have very little recourse except to just keep fighting on and hope some day you win. It’s ridiculous, they hold all the cards and have the ability to negatively impact your life and consumers have very few rights.
Like FF pointed out
“the banking industry….warned that an interest rate limit could cause a sour reaction in the financial markets.” Sound indeed like a threat against:
– politicians who interfere with their business.
– backlash against the consumer who will pay in some sort or fashion anyway, even if it is not via interest rate gouging.
UW, you are right. Credit should be refused to those who cannot/will not pay accordingly. It should be available to everyone who can. CC interest rates today are another example of the sticking-it-to-the-masses who can, paying for those who cannot/do not. Spread the pain…
yttik,
Sure we have rights as consumers:
We have the right to be screwed.
We have the right to be screwed some more.
We have the right to be royally screwed.
We have the right to like it.
Grail Guardian–I would say that about sums it up.
From above and the Explorer Scouts story…”Ten minutes into arrant mayhem in this town near the Mexican border, and the gunman, a disgruntled Iraq war veteran, has already taken out two people, one slumped in his desk, the other covered in blood on the floor.”
Leave it to Pravda Times to say it was a “disgruntled Iraq war veteran” instead of, um….lemme see….maybe an…Arab Terrorist?
Dick Heads.
Sorry to be O/T…FF–thank you for pointing that out. I blogged about that story, and completely missed that. Janet Napolitano tells us we have to be prepared for them, you know.
I’m going to put up that list of nay-saying Senators, too.
Why make fun of Chris Dodd, he voted for the bill.
Because Dodd is a dishonest snake who has no business being in charge of the Banking Committee. Because he sneakily made sure that AIG’s bonuses were approved, which means I have a short memory. And because he is a friend of former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozila,who will soon be in the penitentiary, and who made sure that Chris Dodd got himself a nice special “VIP” mortgage rate–which means I also have longer term memory. That countrywide thing was so smarmy, it took nearly six months of hounding to get him to produce his own mortgage papers. And because Dodd had plenty to do with covering up for Fannie Mae. Chris Dodd voting for this is too little too late. And as Chair of the banking committee he had no problem getting things done for Wall Street, but he has a problem getting them done for the rest of us.There is nothing clean about Chris Dodd. I’m not making fun of him, I resent that he is even in a position of power. I suspect that will end soon though.
UW TOTUS must have a conscience.
Too bad he couldn’t have figured that out before he borrowed a few trillion dollars.
DE that’s almost comedy. He’s trolling for the old tax increases that are going to inch down well below people who make 250k. Try more like 75k. And then throw in all the upped taxes on goods, like the “sweet tax”, more “gas tax” etc etc. It’s coming. Soon.
TOTUS is now looking at poll numbers.
I’m probably unpopular, but I don’t hppen to think the government should regulate credit card interest rates. If I get another credit card, it will be from a Credit Union. This will lessen access to credit for “deadbeats” with bad credit. But if they don’t get credit, the next step is the payday loan which is far worse.
highway robbery,my advice don;t use their credit cards,
i use one cause it makes me money 300 00 this year already.pay it off every month..when people quit thinking this money is a gift.
and not a high priced loan,then we will get somewhere..
Anybody have a video of Nancy’s press joke today?
Update: Got it.
DE! Congrats on being quoted by the Obama media – even if it was snark. All I can say is that it PROVES they are watching, listening, and you can bet will turn on a dime (or a trillion) when it serves them best. JUST LIKE WITH BUSH.
F*** them all. (expect maybe IBD)
they are leaving with the ones who brung them
[…] To sum things up, this bill isn’t worth the powder to blow it up with, as usual. It doesn’t address a cap on loan shark rates at all. Nor does it reign in the companies from arbitrarily raising your rates for no reason other than they just want to gouge you some more. Both of these issues got removed from consideration right after your Senator and Congress person tallied up all those campaign contributions. Only 33 senators voted “Yes” in roll call to a bill that would have capped interest rates. Only one of them was a Republican, you should know this the next time you have delusions that this party cares about you any more than the Democrats do. As for the Democrats, the number “32″ is a very interesting statement, don’t you think? The Party of The People? At least Republicans are up-front about letting you know they don’t give a rat’s ass about what their biggest donors are doing to you. (See names of “Yes” voters here) […]
[…] To sum things up, this bill isn’t worth the powder to blow it up with, as usual. It doesn’t address a cap on loan shark rates at all. Nor does it reign in the companies from arbitrarily raising your rates for no reason other than they just want to gouge you some more. Both of these issues got removed from consideration right after your Senator and Congress person tallied up all those campaign contributions. Only 33 senators voted “Yes” in roll call to a bill that would have capped interest rates. Only one of them was a Republican, you should know this the next time you have delusions that this party cares about you any more than the Democrats do. As for the Democrats, the number “32″ is a very interesting statement, don’t you think? The Party of The People? At least Republicans are up-front about letting you know they don’t give a rat’s ass about what their biggest donors are doing to you. (See names of “Yes” voters here) […]
Both of my Senators, Schumer & Gillibrand, voted “yes.” Watch for Gillibrand–she is a financial whiz (voted against the TARP funds 2x! against Party pressure, because there was not enough oversight–very prescient).