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Yay Vermont!
That's right; we're still a state.
Alright, that said, I really don't understand the Senate's opposition to this. Could someone enlighten me on the negative aspects of this bill?
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@TalKeaton: If rates are capped, credit lines will be limited to only those people with very good credit scores and credit history. All others will be excluded.
New credit could to be established via secured cards but its kinda sad to borrow at 15% from yourself with the bank keeping the interest.
Additionally, Credit Card compaines still want to make money so they could reduce rewards, reduce/elimnate grace periods, increase interchange (which results in higher prices).
In the end those with good credit and good credit habits will fund the behaviors of those that have poor credit habits.
@TalKeaton: The negative aspects are that the credit card companies will make less money and thus donate less money to the douchebag politicians' campaigns.
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@TalKeaton: I just think it's a horrible idea -- the government doesn't need to interfere with the lending industry. Let a credit card or loan have whatever interest rate they want; an intelligent consumer will look elsewhere for their lending needs.
Though I'm probably the only one around here who thinks the defeat of the bill is a good and logical thing...
@supercereal: The flaw in your logic is simplle. There is NO PLACE ELSE TO GO. The credit card industry is not a competitive industry. there are very few competitors (cough-bulllsh_t -cough) and they all do the same thing.
Whenever a credit card company tells you it's raising rates because of the current economic situation what they're really telling you is you have no where else to go so there going to bend you over and take you for all they can.
this regulation is necessary because the goverment didn't do there job in regulating the size of these companies. they should not have been able to get as large as they did.
@supercereal: No I'd say the vast majority agree with you, its just that 95% of consumerist commentators are rabidly in support of subsidizing dead beat consumers and assaulting responsible people.
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@supercereal: \"the government doesn't need to interfere with the lending industry. ... Though I'm probably the only one around here who thinks the defeat of the bill is a good and logical thing...\"
Not that we need a 15% cap, but the rest of us think the government needs to \"interfere\" with the lending industry because we've been reading the news for the last 12 months or so. Or did you miss all that awesome lack of regulation hitting the fan?
@Eyebrows McGee (popping ~May 29): Political propaganda - those of us who did real research in the past 12 months know what happened was CAUSED by government regulations, specifically regulations REQUIRING lending to those who should not be taking out loans.
@PopulistOutrage: Oh please. If you weren't sucking from the political propaganda tit, you'd know how the CRA worked, and that it NEVER required lending to unqualified borrowers -- and the fact that you think it DOES totally undermines any point you may make, because it's NOT HARD to actually look up the law. Or get your information from a source that knows how to read the CRA for you ... not from one with a vested interest in ensuring you have no idea what the law is in order to keep you politically ignorant.
@Eyebrows McGee (popping ~May 29):
Well actually, while the entire crisis can't be blamed on government, (Financial companies' horrific risk management practices certainly was half the problem) but government has some blame here also. Everyone likes to bring up the CRA, but it goes beyond that. Over the past couple decades, the government gave Fannie/Freddie \"goals\" to lend trillions of dollars with 40-50% or so to sub-prime/Alt-A mortgages to further their goals of expanding home ownership. Of course these goals were met happily by Fannie/Freddie, since the government implicitly (later explicitly) backed all this money they were putting into the mortgage market. There's no question that these additional trillions of dollars inflated the bubble and helped get us to where we are today.
I realize this topic always descends into partisan bickering. Without sounding all Kumbaya, both political parties have blame as well as both government and corporations. Republicans like GWB were just as bubble inflating with his \"ownership society\" as was Clinton and Carter. Everyone (almost) seemed to think expanding home ownership was a good idea until this mess. Also, while government created the bubble, the financial companies jumped right on board as soon as it seemed that the risk could be controlled and the market profitable. They massively screwed up their risk management and probably deserved to go out of business, even if it wasn't practical. Now, flame on!
@giggitygoo: I'm not blaming the GOP ... Clinton was definitely deregulating like crazy too. But blaming the CRA just proves that you have a) not read the CRA and b) no idea what underlies this crisis.
@Eyebrows McGee (popping ~May 29): The Federal Reserve's policies caused this crisis. Here's an article from August, 2003, warning about the housing bubble:
[mises.org]
Here's Ben Bernanke in 2005, just before becoming the new Fed Chairman, not too worried about a housing bubble:
\"House prices are unlikely to continue rising at current rates,\" said Bernanke, who served on the Fed board from 2002 until June. However, he added, \"a moderate cooling in the housing market, should one occur, would not be inconsistent with the economy continuing to grow at or near its potential next year.\"
Here's a video from June, 2005, where Peter Schiff, President of Euro Pacific Capital and free market advocate, saying our economy was \"basically a bubble\" and not viable:
[www.europac.net]
So, who do you listen to for economic advice, and what were they saying about the economy?
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@giggitygoo: All the more reason to vote for an alternative political party. But the two main parties have created a system (for instance Commission on Presidential Debates) that excludes alternative parties from the processes.
Now only if the mass media (tv/radio) would just stop suckling at the money milk of these two main parties and actually create legitimate, non-partisan reports on alternative political parties (versus \"3rd party as a spoiler\") we would see more folks informed...
Alternative party politicians would have really stuck it to the businesses which created this morass...
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@PopulistOutrage: ahh, \"march of the dittoheads\". what a grating tune.
to use your words: \"Please back up this propaganda with facts.\"
since you were so busy doing \"real research in the past 12 months\", you should have no trouble coming up with that.
@Eyebrows McGee (popping ~May 29): To be perfectly honest, if I hadn't been reading the news, I wouldn't have noticed any change in my day to day life. What \"hit the fan\" was the irresponsibility that could have been prevented if people had more common sense. Similarly, people with common sense would avoid a loan at 3800%. The government doesn't (well...shouldn't -- I may be expecting too much) need to tell people how not to be stupid. If they want to drive themselves into the ground, let them.
But now that the government seemingly has an infinite supply of free money these days (despite calling it all \"loans\"), I can't stop them from wasting it on undeserving entities.
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@supercereal: The problem is with the current legislation (or lack thereof) there's no incentive for credit card companies to maintain lower interest rates. Sure some cards have \"guaranteed 3% for three years\" promotions, but they still see one late payment as an excuse to bend you over because that's what all the other cards are doing and hey, you already have their card.
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further proof most of the senate is bought and paid for in full by special intrests...
why shouldn't credit cards be held to the same standard as credit unions?
@PSN: kingpsyz: because they are different