March 31st the Dodd-Levin Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act passed. This I learned from the writer of a post on Gather.com. The below is an email from Senator Carl Levin’s office in regards to the landmark credit card legislation.
“The landmark bill approved by the Banking Committee earlier this week would ban the most egregious credit card practices that are unfairly deepening or prolonging credit card debt for many consumers. Under this legislation, for example, credit card companies would be prohibited from applying higher interest rates retroactively to existing credit card debt, hiking interest rates on customers who pay on time, and collecting interest on credit card debts that were repaid on time. In addition, this bill would crack down on unreasonable fees, including repeated late fees, over-the-limit fees, and fees to pay your bill, and would prohibit charging interest on those fees. It would also prohibit so-called "universal default" interest rate hikes in which a credit card company hikes a cardholder's interest rate for reasons unrelated to the account held with that company. It would also make sure that cardholders get their bills 21 days before the bill is due and give them until 5:00 p.m. on the due date to make a payment.”
This is very welcome news for many, but what struck my funny bone were the questions that preceded the blog. Is this a proper role for Government or is this a Socialist take-over of American Capitalism? Does the Government have any right to regulate the practices of private companies? Will this Legislation help you or a loved one? Do you see this as an unwarranted intrusion upon free-flowing capitalism? My answer to the first three questions is a resounding and bellowing yes! And for the last question, lately I believe “free-flowing” capitalism has been rapid flood waters breaking through a dam.
Here my humble thoughts to these posed questions. We rage into an all out Blitzkrieg of anger and hostility when our government suggests to raise our taxes, but it is somehow okay for a credit card company to gauge consumers with high interest rates, unreasonable fees, etc, etc, etc. We allow businesses to get away with literally murder (deregulation of our food industry), but we raise banners of injustice and throw out words like “socialism” when our government wants to renovate the nation’s infrastructure, clean up health care system and improve education. Does anyone see the absurd hypocrisy?
We whine and complain about “socialism” a word that is so very much misused, but we allow insurance companies exploit and inflate the costs of care health coverage. We even have to pay corporations money to die (life insurance). We pay so much money to corporations with really no benefit, yet we do not want to give money to our government with the promise of increasing our quality of living. Why do we put so much trust in corporate CEO’s, or do we believe corporations are just so gosh darn righteous? Oh yes, they care. I’ve seen that commercial.
Here is the bottom line-corporations are out to make money for corporations with little to no concern for the American public, so why should we care about their free-wheeling capitalism. We elect our government to work for us, and we can take their power away when they step out of line. In a Democracy it is the people with the true power. So, who would we want the power to go to; the corporations who make money off our misfortune, or politicians whose career depends on our votes?
The role of our elected public officials is to serve and protect the American citizens and it doesn’t matter whether they are protecting us from terrorists or corporations. You see the problem with the government is we elect public officials who are lobbied by big corporations-and that is called corruption. Anyone who tries to convince you deregulation of big business is a good idea is trying to exploit you and make more money for themselves.
My question is how come corporations have more rights than people? If the government is to protect us from Terrorists, shouldn’t they protect us from those who exploit us? Both, threaten our lives and our freedoms? Some corporations (not all) threaten our individual financial freedom. Where is the line drawn from where our government can offer protection? It’s okay to send troops overseas to protect us from “terrorists,” but if they step into stop corporations for exploitation they are over stepping government boundaries. Saying government does not have the power over corporations, means the corporations are really in power. And this is why AIG got away with giving away bonuses to their employees.
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“The landmark bill approved by the Banking Committee earlier this week would ban the most egregious credit card practices that are unfairly deepening or prolonging credit card debt for many consumers. Under this legislation, for example, credit card companies would be prohibited from applying higher interest rates retroactively to existing credit card debt, hiking interest rates on customers who pay on time, and collecting interest on credit card debts that were repaid on time. In addition, this bill would crack down on unreasonable fees, including repeated late fees, over-the-limit fees, and fees to pay your bill, and would prohibit charging interest on those fees. It would also prohibit so-called "universal default" interest rate hikes in which a credit card company hikes a cardholder's interest rate for reasons unrelated to the account held with that company. It would also make sure that cardholders get their bills 21 days before the bill is due and give them until 5:00 p.m. on the due date to make a payment.”
This is very welcome news for many, but what struck my funny bone were the questions that preceded the blog. Is this a proper role for Government or is this a Socialist take-over of American Capitalism? Does the Government have any right to regulate the practices of private companies? Will this Legislation help you or a loved one? Do you see this as an unwarranted intrusion upon free-flowing capitalism? My answer to the first three questions is a resounding and bellowing yes! And for the last question, lately I believe “free-flowing” capitalism has been rapid flood waters breaking through a dam.
Here my humble thoughts to these posed questions. We rage into an all out Blitzkrieg of anger and hostility when our government suggests to raise our taxes, but it is somehow okay for a credit card company to gauge consumers with high interest rates, unreasonable fees, etc, etc, etc. We allow businesses to get away with literally murder (deregulation of our food industry), but we raise banners of injustice and throw out words like “socialism” when our government wants to renovate the nation’s infrastructure, clean up health care system and improve education. Does anyone see the absurd hypocrisy?
We whine and complain about “socialism” a word that is so very much misused, but we allow insurance companies exploit and inflate the costs of care health coverage. We even have to pay corporations money to die (life insurance). We pay so much money to corporations with really no benefit, yet we do not want to give money to our government with the promise of increasing our quality of living. Why do we put so much trust in corporate CEO’s, or do we believe corporations are just so gosh darn righteous? Oh yes, they care. I’ve seen that commercial.
Here is the bottom line-corporations are out to make money for corporations with little to no concern for the American public, so why should we care about their free-wheeling capitalism. We elect our government to work for us, and we can take their power away when they step out of line. In a Democracy it is the people with the true power. So, who would we want the power to go to; the corporations who make money off our misfortune, or politicians whose career depends on our votes?
The role of our elected public officials is to serve and protect the American citizens and it doesn’t matter whether they are protecting us from terrorists or corporations. You see the problem with the government is we elect public officials who are lobbied by big corporations-and that is called corruption. Anyone who tries to convince you deregulation of big business is a good idea is trying to exploit you and make more money for themselves.
My question is how come corporations have more rights than people? If the government is to protect us from Terrorists, shouldn’t they protect us from those who exploit us? Both, threaten our lives and our freedoms? Some corporations (not all) threaten our individual financial freedom. Where is the line drawn from where our government can offer protection? It’s okay to send troops overseas to protect us from “terrorists,” but if they step into stop corporations for exploitation they are over stepping government boundaries. Saying government does not have the power over corporations, means the corporations are really in power. And this is why AIG got away with giving away bonuses to their employees.
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