With record unemployment, real wages declining, and living expenses and fuel costs strangling budgets, more families than ever are relying on credit cards to make ends meet. The average American family now has nearly $10,000 of credit card debt, and most of their interest rates already seem like highway robbery. It just makes sense to ensure that consumers are protected from abusive rate increases and interest charges.
How are they going to explain this one? From El Tinklenberg:
“How are they going to explain this one? ”
The way they usually do - by makin’ (deleted) up.
Seriously.
Hey, how about people learn to live within their means, shame on the people that have over $10,000 racked up on credit cards!
I’ve never missed a payment, gopgal, and Capital One raised my interest rate, and announced it with a letter that basically stated either accept the rate hike or cancel the card.
My balance is less than $1,000, so that’s not as big a deal to me as it is to some people, however….
shame on you for defending these companies.
Typical - gopgal completely absolves the lenders for their poor decisions in extending credit.
These days, the GOP only holds OTHERS accountable for their actions, as gopgal so clearly demonstrates.
So then GOPGal, I expect that you aren’t a big fan of the bailout?
Sean
gopgal is a big fan of herself.
GOPGAL,
The supply side predators need people to rack up debt in order for the economy to work under a supply side system. Don’t you get it that purchasing power for the middle class has remained relatively stagnant for the last 30 years? Middle class spending drives the economy, all sides agree on that. Without real wage growth, the only way to get money flowing through the economy was to make credit easier and easier to get.
So, lets lay blame where it belongs. The supply side redistribution of wealth to the top 1% has bankrupted America’s economy. The money did not trickle down to the middle class. Real wages have not gone up. A select few have become extremely wealthy, but they do not re-invest in industry in any appreciable amount. When companies were given all this extra capital, they just bought back their own stock, putting zero of that back into the economy.
So, GOPGAL, as FDR said, if someone works 40 hours a week a a decent job, they should be able to afford a house, one vacation a year, and to be able to send their kids to the doctor if need be. In today’s supply side world, you often canot even do that with two incomes. According to McCain and Bachmann, we should just get two jobs, so we will hardly ever see our kids or be able to raise them. Nice family values, but I digress. So, if you want a country of economic royalists and fascists, you can find those in other countries, but we are sick of it here. We fought a revolution to get rid of feudal royalists, and we won’t stand for economic royalists either!
Very well said Alec.
TwoPutt,
It is funny how the home owners are, according to Republicans, irresponsible, lazy, uneducated, ignorant, undeserving minorities,
While the university educated, lifetime experienced Republicans do the same thing, and they deserve millions in bonuses. That the white, rich, connected affirmative action of the Republicans. Meritocracy be damned.
20,000 people lost their jobs at HP, and Fiorna got a 24 million dollar bonus as she was fired. It is obvious to see what the priorities are. Obviously not American citizens.
Alec, gopgal and her ilk simply don’t understand economics.
And they completely ignore that everything the supply siders have said and predicted, has turned out wrong.
GOPG
Bush TOLD us to act irresponsibly, as our government does, and live on credit. It is the American way!
I don’t think Michelle had a choice. Her husband told her what to do, and she did it. You can’t blame her for her actions, cause she does what her husband says.
Why mix Elwyn Tinklenberg into this. He’s a proven loser. Moreover, try fact checking. Chicago Sun Times’ Lynn Sweet reported (between the dotted lines):
………..
Congressman Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL), Chairman of the Financial Services’ Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, led the House of Representatives in passing H.R. 627, Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights Act by a vote of 357 - 70. Introduced by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), this legislation would level the playing field between card issuers and cardholders by applying common-sense regulations to ban retroactive interest rate hikes on existing balances, double-cycle billing, and due-date gimmicks. It would also improve the advance notice of impending rate hikes, giving cardholders the information they need and rights to make decisions about their financial lives.
“With more than 640 million credit cards in circulation that account for an estimated $1.5 trillion of consumer spending, the U.S. economy has clearly gone plastic,” said Rep, Gutierrez. “But America’s love affair with credit cards comes with a hefty price. The average credit card debt among American households has more than doubled over the past decade. Today, the average family owes roughly $8,000 on their credit cards. Meanwhile, as Americans struggle to make ends meet, a growing share of the industry’s revenues come from deceptive tactics, such as universal default terms spelled out in fine print — the terms and conditions of which can be changed at any time for any reason with 15 days’ notice or less. That is unacceptable.”
………….
This link:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2009/04/credit_card_bill_of_rights_adv.html
That’s $8000 average debt, from the man who should know; whereas it was $10,000 from Elwyn Tinklenberg’s puffing.
This IP insider, Tinklenberg, is making noises as if he is positioning himself for another unsuccessful run in the Sixth District where Taryll Clark might win rather than an unimaginative DFL repeat - a revolving door retread, tried-it-lost-it-returned-Bachmann individual.
On the question of a Tinklenberg v. Bachmann replay, and of Taryll Clark as a fresh-face opportunity for the DFL in the Sixth, MinnIndependent had a very good story:
http://minnesotaindependent.com/32498/tinklenberg-v-bachmann-redux-dflers-already-eyeing-2010
I don’t think Nancy Schumacher, chair of the DFL in the Sixth Congressional District, would want another loss there to Bachmann.
The Klobuchar numbers against Mark Kennedy in the Sixth, where Kennedy had held the Congressional seat prior to Bachmann, show that a viable and appealing DFL candidate CAN draw a majority of votes there.