Credit Cards Next to Default, Sander Introduces Rate Caps to Protect Consumers
While I have no sympathy for theses sonsabitches…
Prominent banking analyst Meredith Whitney warned that “credit cards are the next credit crunch,” as contracting credit lines will lower consumer spending and hurt the U.S. economy.
“Few doubt the importance of consumer spending to the U.S. economy and its multiplier effect on the global economy, but what is underappreciated is the role of credit-card availability in that spending,” Whitney wrote in the Wall Street Journal.
… it’s good to see Sanders stepping up to the plate (in a way my Senators never would) to limit the interest credit cards can hit you with:
Sen. Bernie Sanders will introduce legislation this week to cap interest rates charged by credit card companies that now slap consumers with rates of up to 30 percent. “This is money that comes right out of their hides and it hurts,” Sanders told The Burlington Free Press. His legislation would impose 15 percent interest rate ceiling. It also would limit fees. “We are going to introduce a national usury law which will prohibit any financial institution from charging these outrageous rates,” he told Thom Hartmann’s nationally-syndicated radio show. “These loan sharks wear three-piece suits, but they’re not much different than those guys who break people’s knee caps.”
At the same time that banks are receiving the largest taxpayer bailout in U.S. history and at the same time that the Federal Reserve has lowered short-term interest rates that banks pay to near zero percent, the same banks are charging consumers outrageous fees and sky-high interest rates on credit cards and other loans.
I’ll have more on credit cards later. If YOU have time, please call your senator and representatives (links on the handy sidebar on the right, scroll down to “Gummint”) and ask them to support Sanders’ bill.
March 11th, 2009 at 11:41 am
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March 11th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
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