Or better yet send one of your sons or grandchildrem to Afghanistan to fight Al Qaeda. My guess is that the good priestis too cowardly to do either. This is completely disgraceful that this person is considering putting our soldiers overseas in danger by this idiotic act. Jones of boon dock Florida is garnering attention for himself by threatening to burn the Koran on Sept 11th. He is doing so because he says that he want to show terrorists that “we are not scared of them.” SERIOUSLY!!!! General Petraeus said yesterday that this moron will be jeopardizing American lives overseas if he actually carries out this bigoted act.
Gen Petraeus says the image of the burning could have a similar impact to photographs of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib jail, making targets of Americans around the world.
He said it could “endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort” in Afghanistan.
It is really unbelievable that Republicans have been completely silent on the Priest’s plans.
That is a very good question GOP…what is it about working families that propels you to do everything within your power to make their lives as difficult as possible?
President Obama made this statement yesterday, originally made by the late great Ted Kennedy, while unveiling his $50 billion dollar rail, runway, and air traffic control rebuilding plan to create MORE jobs by the end of this year. But back to the GOP. Republicans have this “deep seated hatred for” working people…or the working class…. (Glenn Beck inspired quote). It never seases to amaze me how far the GOP will go to throw working class families under the bus if its a choice between working families and the filthy rich.
Here are more of the President’s remarks:
But there are some folks in Washington who see things differently. When it comes to just about everything we’ve done to strengthen the middle class and rebuild our economy, almost every Republican in Congress said no. Even where we usually agree, they say no. They think it’s better to score political points before an election than actually solve problems. So they said no to help for small businesses. No to middle-class tax cuts. No to unemployment insurance. No to clean energy jobs. No to making college affordable. No to reforming Wall Street. Even as we speak, these guys are saying no to cutting more taxes for small business owners. I mean, come on! Remember when our campaign slogan was “Yes We Can?” These guys are running on “No, We Can’t,” and proud of it. Really inspiring, huh?
To steal a line from our old friend, Ted Kennedy: what is it about working men and women that they find so offensive?
This is worth a listen…the President was on fire yesterday.
NOTE:Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors. Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management. Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com
NOTE:Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors. Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management. Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com
In this very interesting Vanity Fair article a reporter followed the President around from dawn to dusk for a single day. Can you imagine this schedule every day??
At the hour of dawn, in the same southwest-corner, second-floor bedroom of the White House where Abraham Lincoln once slept, the president awakens. On this spring morning, a Wednesday, Barack Obama is alone; his wife, Michelle, is on her way to Mexico City on her first solo foreign trip. He heads upstairs for 45 minutes of weights and cardio in his personal gym, then puts on a dark suit and navy-blue pin-striped tie.
[....]
When Obama arrives in the office this morning, just before 9:30, the first item on his agenda, as always, is a meeting with his chief of staff for a quick rundown of the coming day: “three minutes, four minutes, five minutes—whatever it takes, but you’ve got to make it quick,” Rahm Emanuel says. On its face, the imbalance between time and task is absurd: three, four, five minutes, to sum up the world. Emanuel himself has been up since 5:15, and in his office since before 7:30, when he holds his first meeting with the rest of the senior staff, followed by a second one with the “expanded” staff and the legislative liaisons.
[....]
On this Wednesday, Obama is dealing with the aftermath of a West Virginia coal-mine tragedy, with a vacancy on the Supreme Court, and with the prospect of a new law in Arizona that will give local law-enforcement officers the right to demand identification from anyone they happen to think may be in the country illegally. He is confronting a shortage of disaster-relief funds at the Federal Emergency Management Agency—this, days before the oil-rig catastrophe occurs in the Gulf of Mexico—and later this morning, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. will testify before Congress about the administration’s latest plans for trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other alleged 9/11 conspirators. Also today, the president will nominate a federal appeals-court judge, seven United States attorneys, and six federal marshals, and he will present Garth Brooks with a special “Grammys on the Hill” award for promoting the intellectual property rights of musicians. Tomorrow, Thursday, he will announce a new strategy for the space program; express condolences on the passing of the civil-rights leader Dr. Benjamin Hooks; order hospitals that participate in Medicare or Medicaid not to deny visitation rights on the basis of sexual orientation; release joint income-tax returns showing earnings with Michelle of $5.5 million (most of it from his best-selling books); and travel to Florida for two evening fund-raisers on behalf of the Democratic National Committee.
Another interesting tidbit from the article:
Except for George Washington, all of the presidents have lived in the White House. They’ve all taken the same oath to uphold the same constitution. But the modern presidency—Barack Obama’s presidency—has become a job of such gargantuan size, speed, and complexity as to be all but unrecognizable to most of the previous chief executives. The sheer growth of the federal government, the paralysis of Congress, the systemic corruption brought on by lobbying, the trivialization of the “news” by the media, the willful disregard for facts and truth—these forces have made today’s Washington a depressing and dysfunctional place. They have shaped and at times hobbled the presidency itself.
NOTE:Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors. Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management. Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com
Good evening. Tonight, I’d like to talk to you about the end of our combat mission in Iraq, the ongoing security challenges we face, and the need to rebuild our nation here at home.
I know this historic moment comes at a time of great uncertainty for many Americans. We have now been through nearly a decade of war. We have endured a long and painful recession. And sometimes in the midst of these storms, the future that we are trying to build for our nation – a future of lasting peace and long-term prosperity may seem beyond our reach.
But this milestone should serve as a reminder to all Americans that the future is ours to shape if we move forward with confidence and commitment. It should also serve as a message to the world that the United States of America intends to sustain and strengthen our leadership in this young century.
From this desk, seven and a half years ago, President Bush announced the beginning of military operations in Iraq. Much has changed since that night. A war to disarm a state became a fight against an insurgency. Terrorism and sectarian warfare threatened to tear Iraq apart. Thousands of Americans gave their lives; tens of thousands have been wounded. Our relations abroad were strained. Our unity at home was tested.
These are the rough waters encountered during the course of one of America’s longest wars. Yet there has been one constant amidst those shifting tides. At every turn, America’s men and women in uniform have served with courage and resolve. As Commander-in-Chief, I am proud of their service. Like all Americans, I am awed by their sacrifice, and by the sacrifices of their families.
The Americans who have served in Iraq completed every mission they were given. They defeated a regime that had terrorized its people. Together with Iraqis and coalition partners who made huge sacrifices of their own, our troops fought block by block to help Iraq seize the chance for a better future. They shifted tactics to protect the Iraqi people; trained Iraqi Security Forces; and took out terrorist leaders. Because of our troops and civilians -and because of the resilience of the Iraqi people – Iraq has the opportunity to embrace a new destiny, even though many challenges remain.
So tonight, I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.
This was my pledge to the American people as a candidate for this office. Last February, I announced a plan that would bring our combat brigades out of Iraq, while redoubling our efforts to strengthen Iraq’s Security Forces and support its government and people. That is what we have done. We have removed nearly 100,000 U.S. troops from Iraq. We have closed or transferred hundreds of bases to the Iraqis. And we have moved millions of pieces of equipment out of Iraq.
The Republican party really think that voters are stupid. The GOP honestly believe that the American people have forgotten the disasterous eight years of Republican rule. Not only do they think voters have forgotten but they also believe that they do not need to offer up anything so far as a plan for the American people to put them back in control of Congress. You remember when the GOP controlled Congress? They shut down the government (think the current situation in California). Republicans also spent millions of taxpayer dollars investigating a Democratic president that resulted in nothing more than a slap on the hand. Republicans did recently announce that they plan to launch several investigations of the current administration for things like the alleged job offer to Joe Sestak; the new black panthers ridiculousness; repeal health care and wall street reform and virtually everything that has been accomplished by this administration in the last two years. So no ideas of its own just repeal all the laws that have been passed in the last nineteen months by Democrats and cut more taxes for wealthy Americans. To hell with the ballooning deficit that it was critical to decrease when it came to extending unemployment benefits for the nation’s most vulnerable. But rich folks must be able to pay for that extra luxury car.
You see, the GOP believes that all the large companies need to stop hoarding money and start hiring is more tax cuts. Because when we lowered interest rates for banks borrowing money from the Fed they went straight out and started lending to small businesses and homeowners? They didn’t??? What..the Fed is basically giving banks free money in an effort to stimulate lending and the banks are not following through and lending it to small businesses? We are shocked, shocked that gambling is going on in here! (Casablanca).
We have played the game of giving corporate America more money through tax breaks and they will hire. Heck..George W. Bush gave unprecedented tax cuts to corporate America and he had the worst job creation record in history in addition to driving the country/economy into the ditch! Yes we remember! How about we not encourage the rich to take money out of their businesses by way of tax breaks but instead raise their taxes so that they are incentivized to invest profits into their business by way of innovation and expansion? It is clear that corporations are not going to do anything that does not make sense for their business. The President is onto something by making business expansion more desirable than hoarding through a tax increase. If the GOP thinks that all of a sudden because Wall Street got tax breaks it is suddenly going to start hiring the people who make up the grand old party are delusional.
Yes, our memories are still fresh from twenty months ago.
NOTE:Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors. Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management. Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com
NOTE:Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors. Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management. Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com
It appears that that want-to-be leader of the House is talking out of the side of his neck, along with many other Republicans, when they say that the stimulus did not work.
Mark Zandi, Moody’s chief economist and economist most quoted by Republicans to support their position on the economy, said Boehner was “just wrong” to call the $787 billion stimulus spending “a failure.”
If there was no stimulus at all, Zandi said, unemployment would be at around 11.5% rather than 9.5%.
“I think if we had not had the stimulus, estimates put forward by the Congressional Budget Office are absolutely right: we’d have 2.5-3 million fewer jobs than we’d have today,” he said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast briefing this morning.
What needs to change are people’s expectations, he said. “The stimulus did exactly what it was intended to do. It was intended to end the recession, jump-start the economy, and it did that,” said Zandi, who has advised both Obama and John McCain in the past.
NOTE:Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors. Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management. Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com
The final phase of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 took effect on Sunday. The new rules as summarized by US News and World Report:
Interest Rates
1. If a credit card company increases the annual percentage rate of your card, they must tell you why. While this part of the rule won’t prevent a rate increase, at least you’ll understand the reason (such as a falling credit score), and have an opportunity to address the issue.
2. If your credit card company does increase your interest rate, they must reevaluate that rate increase every six months. If the reason for the increase has been resolved, they must reduce your interest rate within 45 days of completing the reevaluation. This rule could be particularly helpful to those who have seen their credit card interest rates skyrocket for no discernable reason.
Penalty Fees
1. Generally, credit card companies will no longer be able to charge you a penalty fee of more than $25. There are some limited exceptions to this rule. For example, if the card company can prove that they incurred costs in excess of $25 as a result of a late payment, the penalty could exceed $25. And if you were late with a payment in the last six months and pay your bill late again, the penalty can go as high as $35.
2. You can also not be charged a late payment penalty that is greater than the amount of your minimum payment. This avoids the practice of card companies slapping you with a $39 late payment penalty because your were a few days late on a $15 minimum payment.
3. Credit card companies can no longer charge a fee if you don’t use the card. Called an inactivity fee, some credit cards actually hit you with a fee if you didn’t use the card enough. The new rules eliminate this practice.
4. Finally, credit card issuers cannot charge you more than one penalty fee for each transaction or event that gives rise to the fee. For example, if you were late with a payment and the penalty fee caused your account to exceed its credit limit, card companies would hit you with an over-the-limit fee in addition to the late penalty fee. The new regulations put an end to this double-penalty practice.
NOTE:Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors. Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management. Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com
NOTE:Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors. Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management. Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com
For whatever reason Elizabeth Warren has not yet been named to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. One can only surmise that Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, and Chris Dodd, have something to do with the delay. Tim Geithner is rumored to be concerned because of the following:
Geithner, being very close to the nation’s biggest banks, is concerned that Warren, if chosen, will exercise her new policing and enforcement powers to restrict those abusive practices at our commercial banks that have been harmful to consumers and depositors…..
I believe Geithner sees the appointment of Elizabeth Warren as a threat to the very scheme he has utilized to date to hide bank losses, thus keeping the banks solvent and out of bankruptcy court and their existing management teams employed and well-paid.
Geithner’s alleged scheme is to allow banks to earn their way through all of the bad assets on its books due to the mortgage crisis caused primarily by Wall Street itself. How do banks get back in the black? By bilking consumers through excessive and abusive fees. In other words, a government sanctioned bailout taken directly from American consumers with a disingenuous air of legitimacy to cover up the the greed and excesses of the banking and financial industry. Elizabeth Warren, as the new top consumer advocate, would prevent that from happening.
As for Chris Dodd, first he said this:
“She’s qualified, no question about that,” Dodd said. “The question is whether she’s confirmable.”
Now he says this:
“My simple question about Elizabeth is: Is she confirmable?” Dodd said during a visit Tuesday with The Courant’s Editorial Board. “It isn’t just a question of being a consumer advocate. I want to see that she can manage something, too.”
Dodd’s first concern was is Elizabeth Warren confirmable? When Dodd’s initial objection received no traction because it’s clear that Warren enjoys the support of both Republicans and Democrats. If fact, it would be politically astute to name Warren because she is the most feared candidate by Wall Street. One can almost dare a Republican or Democrat for that matter to vote against a clear champion for the middle class taking on Goliath. It’s quite interesting that Dodd would oppose Warren considering the purpose of the agency is protect consumers and Warren has been doing so her entire career. Could it be that the closer Dodd gets to retirement the less he thinks about the American consumer and the more he must think about the interest of his future employers.? Warren is currently the watchdog over the government’s $700 billion bailout of the financial services industry. In the TARP watchdog role we are quite sure that the Harvard professor originally from Oklahoma has stepped on a few toes close to Dodd? Dodd’s tepid endorsement of Warren leads many to believe that he will he go the route of Tom Daschle. Influence peddler who is not a registered lobbyist. Perhaps Dodd will be an influence peddler lobbyist for Wall Street banks? Hmmmm….time will tell.
Management skills can be easily obtained through on-the-job training. However, providing real leadership and being a visionary, assets that Elizabeth Warren clearly brings, are essential components for the head of a new bureau going up against the monolith that is Wall Street. Elizabeth Warren is an independent, strong-willed, advocate for the non-rich who is the only acceptable person to head the new bureau.
Call your Senator and tell him/her to support Warren as the new Sheriff of Wall Street. Further, call the White House and tell the President that you support Warren to head CFPB. 202-456-1111
A little something from the Main Street Brigade with a shout out to Oklahoma where Elizabeth Warren was born.
NOTE:Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors. Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management. Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com
Last night the last of our combat troops pulled out of Iraq after over seven years of fighting. We would like to thank all the brave men and women who are sisters, brother, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmothers, grandfathers, and friends who fought heroically and in some cases lost their lives in Iraq since 2003. Last night marked the end of Iraqi Freedom. Though fifty thousand troops will remain in Iraq they will be acting more as consultants to the Iraq police force and defense and not engaging in combat.
Final U.S. combat brigade pulls out of Iraq
Lt. Col. Mark Beiger huddled his infantrymen in a darkened parking lot minutes before they were to depart Baghdad for the last time.
“This is a historic mission!” he bellowed, struggling to be heard over the zoom of fighter jets and unmanned drones deployed to watch over the brigade’s convoy to Kuwait. “A truly historic end to seven years of war.”
…
By the end of this month, the United States will have six brigades in Iraq, by far its smallest footprint since the 2003 invasion. Those that remain are conventional combat brigades reconfigured slightly and rebranded “advise and assist brigades.” The primary mission of those units and the roughly 4,500 U.S. special operations forces that will stay behind will be to train Iraqi troops. Under a bilateral agreement, all U.S. troops must be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011.
Wow..its a good day. One war down, one more to go.
US ends combat operations in Iraq
The last brigade of US combat has been withdrawn from Iraq, bringing combat operation to an end in a war that has lasted more than seven years and claimed the lives of more than 4,000 US troops.
Over the course the week soldiers from the 4th Stryker brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, have driven hundreds of vehicles from Camp Victory near Baghdad airport to Camp Virginia in Kuwait.
…
Campaign promise
Obama had made ending the Iraq war a central policy of his presidential campaign, and after taking office he immediately announced plans to bring combat troops home by the end of August this year.
He inherited around 144,000 troops in Iraq, 30,000 fewer than the peak levels of 2007, when the Bush administration ordered a soc-called surge in an effort to improve Iraq’s atrocious security situation. Aljazeera
Thank you Mr. President for keeping another one of your campaign promises.
Thank you to all our troops. We appreciate your sacrifice.
NOTE:Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors. Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management. Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com
“We are very optimistic that these first batch of grants are going out the door with almost full participation, very thoughtful proposals. So people are seriously interested in expanding capacity on the ground, expanding technical expertise,” Sebelius said. They are, indeed. According to my count, 19 of the 22 states that are suing the federal government over the constitutionality of the health care law applied for the grants. Below is a sampling:
– ARIZONA: “The State intends to improve their filing review process by hiring an actuarial consultant to review 95% of submissions for compliance and make recommendations regarding whether filings are unjustified or excessive.”
– VIRGINIA: “Virginia will expand the information required to be submitted with rate filings and will develop a procedures manual for the review of rate filings.”
– FLORIDA: “The State will expand the scope to include large group and out-of-State products.”
That didn’t take long. Rupert Murdoch, owner and CEO of Fox News Corp, just donated $1 million dollars to the Republican Governors Association. Thanks Supreme Court of the United States (Citizens United) now Murdoch can simply purchase election without the pretense of a legitimate news outlet.
A report from Business Week reveals that Rupert Murdoch is keen on electing Republican governors. His News Corp donated a million dollars to the Republican Governors Association in June.
“[News Corp's]‘s media outlets play politics more openly than most, but the huge contribution to a party committee is a new step toward an open identification between Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. and the GOP.”
NOTE:Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors. Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management. Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com
NOTE:Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors. Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management. Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com
NOTE:Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors. Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management. Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com
This is great news for anyone who has paid $40 for a cup of coffee. It looks as if the courts are preempting the Wall Street Reform bill when it comes to “unfair and deceptive” practices of banks.
NEW YORK (AP, Eileen Aj Connelly) — A federal judge in California ordered Wells Fargo & Co. to change what he called “unfair and deceptive business practices” that led customers into paying multiple overdraft fees, and to pay $203 million back to customers.
In a decision handed down late Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Alsup accused Wells Fargo of “profiteering” by changing its policies to process checks, debit card transactions and bill payments from the highest dollar amount to the lowest, rather than in the order the transactions took place. That helped drain customer bank accounts faster and drive up overdraft fees, a policy Alsup referred to as “gouging and profiteering.”
The ruling detailed the experiences of two Wells Fargo customers who used their debit cards for multiple small purchases, and were then charged hundreds in overdraft fees because the order the purchases were cleared by the bank depended on the amounts. The judge found the customers, who were part of a class action, were not properly informed of the bank’s policies on processing payments and were unaware the bank would allow debit purchases to go through when their accounts were overdrawn.
“Internal bank memos and e-mails leave no doubt that, overdraft revenue being a big profit center, the bank’s dominant, indeed sole, motive was to maximize the number of overdrafts,” Alsup wrote. That policy would “squeeze as much as possible” from customers with overdrafts, in particular from the 4 percent of customers who paid what he called “a whopping 40 percent of its total overdraft and returned-item revenue.”
The judge dismissed Wells Fargo’s arguments that customers wanted and benefited from the policies, and detailed evidence he said showed efforts to obscure the practices in statements and other materials. Wells Fargo’s online banking system, for example, would display pending purchases in chronological order, “leading customers to believe that the processing would take place in that order.”
“The supposed net benefit of high-to-low resequencing is utterly speculative,” he wrote. “Its bone-crushing multiplication of additional overdraft penalties, however, is categorically assured.”
Alsup also criticized the bank for allowing overdraft purchases after accounts had been drained by offering a “shadow line of credit” that customers were unaware existed.
The decision noted that the Federal Reserve has outlawed some of the practices detailed in the case, most notably debit card overdrafts permitted without customers agreeing to accept overdraft protection.
Judge Alsup ordered Wells Fargo to stop posting transactions in high-to-low order by Nov. 30 and to reverse overdraft fees charged to customers from Nov. 15, 2004, to June 30, 2008, as a result of the policy. A study cited in the decision by a Wells Fargo witness put the restitution at “close to $203 million.”
Wells Fargo spokeswoman Rochele Messick said the bank is “disappointed” with the ruling. “We don’t believe the ruling is in line with the facts of this case and we plan to appeal,” she said.
Messick noted that Wells Fargo changed its policies earlier this year, and customers can no longer incur more than four overdraft charges in one day.
Wells Fargo shares closed Wednesday trading down $1.47, or 5.3 percent, at $26.30, as the broader markets dropped sharply on economic concerns, with banks being particularly hard hit.
The case, heard in the U.S. District Court for Northern California, is Gutierrez vs. Wells Fargo.
NOTE:Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors. Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management. Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com
The following is a speech delivered by Elizabeth Warren at Netroots Nation 2010.
My grandmother, when she was a teenager, drove a wagon in the land rush that settled Oklahoma. Her mother was dead, and her little brothers and sisters were in the back of the wagon. Her father had ridden ahead and tried to find a piece of land that might be somewhere near water–a hard task in Oklahoma. She grew up in that part of the world, she met my grandfather, they got married, they started building one-room schoolhouses and little modest homes across the prairie. They had kids, they stretched, they scratched, they worked hard, they made a little money, and they put it aside, put it in the bank. It got completely wiped out in 1907 in an economic panic. But like many American families, they came back. They started scratching and stretching again, and having more babies–and then the Depression came. And they got wiped out one more time.
You see, my grandmother was born into the world of boom and bust, boom and bust, as it had been from 1794 until the Great Depression. But my grandmother also lived in a world of economic transformation. Because coming out of the Great Depression, just three laws fundamentally altered the course of America’s history.
The first one, FDIC insurance, made it safe to put money in banks. The second one, Glass-Steagal, tried to separate the risk-taking on Wall Street from your local community bank. And the third one, SEC regulations, provide some cops to watch the robbers. And so, out of that, what we got was 50 years of economic peace. No financial panics, no meltdowns. And during that 50 years, we built a strong and prosperous middle class in America.
Now, my grandmother, when she died in 1970 at the age of 94, had been part of that. She owned a little house, she had plenty of groceries in the cupboard, and she had some cash in the bank. She was part of the growth of middle-class America. As were her children and her grandchildren. But shortly after my grandmother died, within a few years, we began unraveling that. Part of it was on the regulatory side. We hadn’t been clever about regulations. They stayed ossified. The regulations put in place in the 1930s had not been updated. They had not adapted to a new world. And along came a new group of people who said, “Let’s just get rid of the regulations. What are they there for anyway? They just cost money. Dump the regulations.” And so the regulatory framework, or the “cops,” who were on the beat began to disappear. They lost their effectiveness.
Another thing happened in that period of time, and that is the foundations of middle-class America began to erode. Start with income. Income and productivity across America had been intertwined after World War II. So every year, basically, productivity was going up–so were wages. But starting in the late 1970s those two begin to diverge, so that productivity continues to rise–indeed rise at a somewhat steeper rate–while incomes flatten out, so that today a fully employed male makes less money than his father made a generation ago, once we adjust for inflation.
On the income side, they’re flat, but on the expense side, these families are not. The core expenses for the middle class–housing, health insurance, day care, college, the things that make a family safer, the things that make a family middle class, the things that let them invest in their children and the future–those went up, adjusted for inflation, by more than 100 percent. Families spent more, but they had flat incomes.
Now, anyone here can figure out what happens next. And that is, savings begin to decline, families who had put money away could no longer do it, and debt begins to rise. And families end up with more mortgage debt, more credit card debt, more car loan debt, more debt of every form. The credit industry then smells an opportunity. It says, “Wait a minute. The old regulations are gone, and middle-class families are under a lot of economic stress. There’s money to be made in this situation.” And indeed there was.
At first it was just the money of lending more, right? More money lent, more income coming in. Got that one. But over time, with the regulations having changed, the business model itself changed so that the old form of lending–the notion that you put the agreement out there, you can see what the interest rate is, you can see how often you have to make the payment, and what the payment is, and that’s the deal: both sides get what the transaction is–that model gave way to a very different pricing model. A “tricks and traps” pricing model. One in which the promise gets cheaper and cheaper: 7.9 percent financing; 3.99 percent financing; zero financing. Cheap, cheap, cheap. Why? Because the real plan is to make the money on the back end. The real plan is to bury the tricks and traps in the fine print, and make really big money back there.
Now what’s the consequence of doing that? Well, the consequence is families can’t price it. You can’t tell up front how much it costs to take out these credit agreements, and more importantly families can’t compare. So the old notion of a competitive market, where you compare products and the best products survive and the worst products get washed out, goes away. Who can tell in here–lay four credit card agreements in front of you–which one is actually the cheapest one? Which is the one that carries the lowest risk? Without a competitive market, the consequence is a big hole in the boat for consumers on credit, so that last year–you watch your numbers?–about $150 billion flowed out of the pockets of ordinary, middle-class families on penalty rates, on penalty rates of interest, on regular rates of interest, on credit cards, on payday loans, on check overdraft, on kickbacks on car loans, all out there coming out of the pockets of ordinary, middle-class families.
So that’s where the market stood, and now we are here at an historic moment. President Obama signed into law the strongest financial reforms in three generations. And in my view, the strongest of those financial reforms is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It’s tough.
And I want to be clear: the president is the one who led on the consumer agency. He insisted it be in there, and he never wavered on that. So we have now the tools on the table to make significant change. The tools to let us get to a time when credit card agreements can be two pages long. When it’s obvious what the cost of a mortgage is, and it’s easy to compare across four mortgages or six mortgages. We can move to that time, but we gotta pick up the tools and use them. This agency must be built. It doesn’t come–think about this statute that’s just been passed. It has a few pieces in it about changes in specific law, but what it mostly is is about the tool of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
I wanted to talk to you for just a minute today about what it is that we might do with this bureau. What it is that–when we’re building something new–what you want to build into its DNA. And so I thought of four things that we should think about as we begin to build a new bureau.
The first one is, it must stand for families. We’ve had long enough where there’s been no one to stand for families. Now what does that mean? It means, in part, in the case of the credit agreements that we’ve been talking about, a level playing field again. It means that there’s someone there to make sure that both families, and lenders, understand the terms of the credit agreement. That it is as obvious to one side as the other. That when they come together, they get what this transaction is. The cost. That we create competitive markets so that the products are products that are not only priced so that consumers can understand them, but they’re priced well in the marketplace.
But it also means something else to stand on behalf of families. When powerful people get together in our government, and they start to divide up where things are going to go, when they start to make decisions about who is going to be helped and who is not going to be helped, there needs to be at least one person in the room who asks the question, “How will this affect America’s families?” Not just how will it affect America’s banks, not just how will it affect America’s businesses, but how it will it affect America’s families. One of the things this bureau can do is be there on behalf of American families.
But a second thing I think is really critical about this agency is it must be reality-based. It’s not good enough to have a great theory. And frankly, it’s not good enough to have just a good heart. It’s got to be grounded in how things really work on the ground. So now I’m going to give you an example of that: small banks. If the consequence of this agency is to put in enough new bureaucratic obligations that it crushes community banks, then the agency will not have been successful. If the community banks are driven out of business, that creates more concentration in the banking industry. The big get bigger and the small go away. But it also means there are fewer of those banks around to lend to the small businesses that we’re counting on to restart this economy. And it means that families themselves have fewer choices between small banks and big banks. And that’s a choice we’ve got to preserve.
So ultimately what this agency has to be about is, yes, the first one on the side of the families, but second, the side of creating workable, realistic markets. Sustainable markets over time. Markets that work for consumers, but that also create a viable, functioning credit system. It’s got to be part of what goes into this.
The third part is the bureau has to be able to grow and change. Part of what went wrong in the 1930s was that we didn’t keep the rules up to date. The world changed around it. The markets changed around it. How families behaved changed around it. But the rules were not changing. They were not vital. And so, what this agency–what we have to think about when you’re building in at the beginning is, “How do you build change? How do you build some creative destruction into the agency itself?”
I come from the world of bankruptcy. It’s what I teach. Bankruptcy is littered with the businesses that didn’t adapt to the world. Government doesn’t have that same discipline in it. And so part of building this agency is building in how it will change and adapt over time. That it has the right structure to do that.
And then the last part I want to mention is part of why I’m here. This will be the first agency we have built in a wired world. Think about that for just one minute. The relationship between government agencies, between bureaucracy, between the government and its people. At the time we built all of the earlier agencies, it was one of… the government labors in relative obscurity, and you send out some information, and people get it through their newspapers, or watching television, or radio, or whatever they listen to. This is an agency that will be the first to be born digital. It will be an agency that will have the capacity to communicate with millions of Americans by just hitting a send button. It will also be an agency where millions of Americans have the capacity to communicate with the agency by hitting a send button. The possibilities here are endless. The notion that part of how one comes to understand and define the problems in the credit area will change if we hear–if this agency hears, if this bureau hears–from people who are experiencing it. This can be built into the research function of the agency. If the agency can hear from people and communicate with people, it changes the concept of how regulations work, of how regulations are tested, of how regulations are communicated, and of how they are enforced.
I think of this as a real opportunity, as we build this agency, not to replicate what was built last time when we had a consumer agency in the 1970s, but to try a whole new model. To think about this agency from a different perspective. That’s why I came here today. I bought a plane ticket and showed up here because I have a specific task.
I wanted to talk to people who have a voice, and that’s why I came to talk to you. There are three things I want to ask you to do with your voice. I want to ask you to use your voice on behalf of economic security for middle-class Americans. In a world in which so many people face so much insecurity, I want you to give them voice. I also want to ask you to use your voice for ideas. This is the place to let ideas be born, to let them bounce around, to let them get tougher, to let the bad ones die out and the good ones advance. This is where ideas should come from. And the third is, I’m going to ask you to use your voice as a voice of conscience in a world that sorely needs more conscience. You are our collective conversation on conscience.
I’m going to wrap this up by saying we have an opportunity now to pick up the tools that were laid out in this new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Unused tools don’t do anyone any good. The point is to pick them up and use them. And it’s going to be tough. The era of my grandmother in the Great Depression, it was tough then. Remember, Franklin Roosevelt faced his economic royalists. Remember, it took him years to get his entire economic package into place. It paid off. It was tough, but it paid off. So what I want to think about is what we do from this moment going forward. If you have any doubts about where we’re headed and how much change we can make, I ask you for just one second to glance back over your shoulder at where we have traveled over the last year.
I was in Chairman Barney Frank’s office just a few weeks ago–and Barney Frank deserves as much credit as anyone on this planet for keeping this Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and making it strong. So, Chairman Frank and I were talking about some details about the bureau, and what might happen, and not, in conference. We got to the end, and Barney looked up in that way he does–you know, over the top of his glasses, and he growled–because that’s the only way I know to describe a conversation with Barney–he said [speaks in raspy, growling voice], “You know, Elizabeth, a year ago this idea wouldn’t have even qualified as a pipe dream. And here we are.”
And here’s the best part of it when you’re thinking about what we can do. We’re not here today because the banks gave it to us. The banks did not, a year ago, say, “Well, we’re really sorry we broke the economy, and, um, uh, we really appreciate that you put $700 billion and a few trillion in guarantees on the table to help bail us out, and therefore we’re gonna support some regulation for ordinary families to kind of level the playing field, and just make sure everybody’s getting a fair deal here, that you can read your credit card contracts and mortgage agreements….”
They didn’t say that. They fought us every single inch of the way. They announced in August of last year that the consumer agency was dead. And why was it dead? Because they were going to kill it. They were quoted in the New York Times. They were that sure of themselves. The lobbyists came out and said, “We will kill the consumer agency.” And they announced it, and they re-announced it, and they re-announced it. They announced its death over and over and over. If you check the papers, the agency was still dead as of February of this year. But we didn’t give up. We scratched, and we bit, and we hung on. And we didn’t give up. And today here’s where we are. With a good, strong set of tools to change the consumer market.
So let me wrap this back around. Is this going to save the middle class by itself–the consumer agency? I’ve written about the middle class now for two decades–and if you want to give me another couple of hours I could bend your ear about all that’s happened here–and the answer is no. There’s frankly too much that’s broken. We’ve got to have change in labor policy, we’ve got to have change in health policy, we’ve got to have changes in education policy. That’s what it will take to restore a middle class. But we also have to have changes in consumer credit policy. And the new bill is a big step in that direction.
So, here’s what I want to say: One way or another, I’ll keep pushing for the middle class. I hope you will too.
Katrina over at the Nation magazine tweeted the following:
WH (& others) indicate Elizabeth Warren 2 be nominated next week to head Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Kudos 2 all who worked 4 her.
If the White House wants to motivate the base and independents for the midterm elections this is a step in that direction.
NOTE:Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors. Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management. Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com
NOTE:Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors. Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management. Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com
Elizabeth Warren is the only person to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
NOTE:Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors. Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management. Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com
Solicitor General Elena Kagan was confirmed as the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States yesterday and is expected to be sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts tomorrow. Kagan will be the fourth woman to serve on the nation’s highest court since its inception. President Obama said the vote “wasn’t just an affirmation of Elena’s intellect and accomplishments. It was also an affirmation of her character and her temperament, her open-mindedness and even-handedness, her determination to hear all sides of every story and consider all possible arguments.’’
The 63-to-37 vote to confirm Kagan fell largely along party lines. Five Republicans, including Olympia J. Snowe and Susan M. Collins of Maine and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, [Lindsey Graham and Richard Lugar] supported Kagan’s nomination. By comparison, nine Republicans crossed party lines last year for Justice Sonia Sotomayor. One Democrat, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, opposed Kagan.
Congratulations General Elena Kagan.
NOTE:Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors. Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management. Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com
FINALLY, some common sense. It appears that a District Court Judge has concluded that homosexual couples are not “inferior” to heterosexual couples. Nor do “opposite-sex” couples have the right to dictate the actions or give rights to “same-sex” couples. Seriously, does this really need to be litigated. Every human being has the same rights as every other human being. For prop 8 groups to argue that they have a superior right to the homosexual community and thereby can serve as a veto on their actions and rights is completely ridiculous. Thank goodness this is on its way to the Supreme Court of the United States so that we will get a final answer-every citizen has the same rights as every other citizem period. Heterosexuals do not have superior rights to homosexuls. That is if the current Supreme Court does not decide to go rogue again like it did in Citizens United.
Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.
Congratulations to all gay couples for getting over this first hurdle.
NOTE:Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors. Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management. Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com
