Posted on 10/14/2008 9:27:09 PM PDT by Libloather
UPDATE: US Sen Dodd To Introduce Consumer Protection Bill
By Patrick Yoest
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said Tuesday that he plans to unveil a legislative package including consumer protection measures pertaining to credit cards, predatory lending, bankruptcies and subprime mortgages.
Dodd, D-Conn., said that he will seek passage of the package - either on its own or as part of an economic stimulus bill - as soon as mid-November, when the Senate will hold a lame-duck work session after the Nov. 4 election Dodd framed the package as a counterpart to a $700 billion Wall Street rescue package signed into law earlier this month.
"It seems to me appropriate that we take some steps to provide for the consumer as well," Dodd said.
Dodd said that he had contacted House and Senate leaders to discuss the package, but hadn't spoken to anyone yet.
The package would include a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures and a provision allowing homeowners to protect their first property through bankruptcy proceedings, according to Dodd. While many congressional Democrats wanted to include a bankruptcy provision in the rescue bill passed earlier this month, the proposal faced strong opposition from congressional Republicans and the White House.
Dodd said a credit card reform provision would also be a part of the package, suggesting that "in light of recent events, there'll be more of an interest in some reform in this area." Dodd in April introduced credit card legislation that banned a number of practices he deemed "abusive," such as universal default and double-cycle billing.
The last part of Dodd's package would deal with predatory lending, which he said would in large part put regulations promulgated by the Federal Reserve into law.
(Excerpt) Read more at nasdaq.com ...
charles schumer had his ideas in the wsj today.
si.
this turkey needs to be tarred and feathered
Something about a barn door comes to mind here.
Not TAX foreclosures, though. Private lenders can be robbed at will, but government, like a Mafia family, must get its cut.
Dodd should be doing the perp walk. Not introducing Consumer Protection Bills. He’s a crook!
Bet he’ll try to get that provision requiring credit card companies to turn report all transactions to the irs.
ALL RIGHT THE CONGRESSIONAL PERP WALK OF 2008!!!
It may be an unpopular view [here], but I wish they would put a cap on credit card interest rates. Why can’t the Republicans be proactive about something like that?
You know, the CYA act!
CYA? and barney frank? (snicker)
The consumer has 1000% too much protection now!!!!
While the libertarian in me would oppose rules that would restrict people's right to decide what contract terms they'll accept, and while there may be a reasonable basis for extremely high interest rates on speculative investments, I would think that someone whose default rate was so high as to require punitive interest rates shouldn't be getting non-collateralized consumer credit. To my mind, the biggest function of some of the massive interest rates is to maximize the lender's share of whatever gets recovered in bankruptcy. Consequently, the issue isn't just between lender and borrower, but between the lender and the borrower's other creditors.
Say goodbye to what’s left of the mortgage business. Any of you who are thinking about buying a new house or refinancing had better do it now.
I only pay cash for property.
I'm basing my opinion that I think it is criminal and immoral to charge such high usury on anything. You can get sick and somebody not take over your affairs for quite awhile. Then you've racked up all those horrible interest charges. Also, young people should have some protections.
The whole thing is set up like they want you to screw up so they make more money. Bankruptcy, and I know people who have abused it in the past, is not something most people would want to go through. Plus I think it costs money to do it, I don't know, never did it.
| 0 | 100.00 | 100.00 | 0.00 | |
| 1 | 118.00 | 105.00 | 20.00 | |
| 2 | 139.24 | 110.25 | 41.00 | |
| 3 | 164.30 | 115.76 | 63.05 | |
| 4 | 193.88 | 121.55 | 86.20 | |
| 5 | 228.78 | 127.63 | 110.51 | |
| 6 | 269.96 | 134.01 | 136.04 | |
| 7 | 318.55 | 140.71 | 162.84 | |
| 8 | 375.89 | 147.75 | 190.98 | |
| 9 | 443.55 | 155.13 | 220.53 | |
| 10 | 523.38 | 162.89 | 251.56 | |
| 11 | 617.59 | 171.03 | 284.14 | |
| 12 | 728.76 | 179.59 | 318.34 | |
| 13 | 859.94 | 188.56 | 354.26 | |
| 14 | 1014.72 | 197.99 | 391.97 | |
| 15 | 1197.37 | 207.89 | 431.57 | |
| 16 | 1412.90 | 218.29 | 473.15 | |
| 17 | 1667.22 | 229.20 | 516.81 | |
| 18 | 1967.32 | 240.66 | 562.65 | |
| 19 | 2321.44 | 252.69 | 610.78 | |
| 20 | 2739.30 | 265.33 | 661.32 |
The table at the right shows the cost of $100 for 20 years, both at an 18% compounding interest and at 20%+5% split interest (add the right two columns together). Note that in the short term, the 25%+5% would cost more, but after 20 years the $100 would cost $927 rather than $2,739.
Such a split system would not only increase the likelihood that debts would get paid back, but it would also yield to more equitable asset divisions in bankruptcy.
How would that seem as an idea?
Senator Dodd and Representative Frank introducing a consumer protection bill is like Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wilkes Booth introducing a presidential protection bill.
I'm truly sorry Fred, as much as I respect President Bush and have supported him, this is what the signing ceremony will look like...
I don't know what has happened to the man, but he needs our prayers.
Geez, it sounds like you want a law against stupidity. You sound like a liberal. You are saying these people are too stupid to take care of their own finances. We need a law to protect them. It perfectly legal to charge whatever interest for a loan or a credit card. If people are too stupid to look over their own money then they don’t need a credit card.
Dodd: "Ohhhh Barney, chicks for nothing, and money for free.
How it must suck to be one of our helpless sandwich-raped endlessly taxed constituents."
I, like millions of Americans actually have a credit card balance. Although I pay over the minimum every month, and I have never been late with a payment, and I get a very good interest rate, I am sure it is the fault of my greedy credit union for giving me the credit card in the first place. As soon as this bill passes, I am walking right in there, and telling them they are "predatory", and they had better just wipe my balance clean, so I can start all over. After all it's not my fault. Before this happens of course, I am going to max it out, and go on a vacation! Anyone want a big screen TV?/sarcasm
IT'S NOT MY FAULT!!!!!!
The problem is that we have not taught people to read what they are signing and only sign what they are agreeing to.
We don’t need a cap on interest rates if the free market works. I have a Navy Federal card with an eight percent interest rate.
My first card was a Sears Card that charges 24% (I think).
I know what both have and keep them both for emergencies.
BUT I don’t use the Sears Card with the high interest rate. Why? Because it has a high interest rate. Period.
If you don’t want the interest rate, don’t sign up for the card. It’s that simple. Why does the government have to regulate what you have a free will to sign or not?
Maybe I am a liberal on this issue. So what? I am an elderly person, used to get straight A's and maybe I was too stupid to handle the medicare book. That's just one mess of all the stuff out there we have to read fine print about. I can look after my own money and pay everything off every month, almost.
It may be perfectly legal, but it's immoral to my way of thinking to charge anyone that kind of interest. I would defend even filthy rich people from having to pay that. They do it on purpose, and it's predatory.
This is a perfect example of why people see Republicans and conservatives in a bad light. They have no compassion for the little people who get into trouble with shysters, and then call them names when they make mistakes. Then to get them out of the mess, another predatory lawyer or bill consolidator takes a chunk. My granddaughter got straight A's, but she fell into that trap.
Go ahead and send me over to KOS or DU. You wouldn't be the first one and probably won't be the last.
Because I believe there should be consumer protection laws to protect people who aren't as smart and don't understand what they are signing. They shouldn't make it so complicated in the first place.
And like I told the other poster, I personally believe extraordinarily high interest rates are immoral.
Do you remember what happened to interest rates during the Jimmy Carter administration? I wouldn’t be surprised if those 18% interest rates were what put Reagan over the top in the election. Companies who were transferring employees had to compensate for the high interest rates or people wouldn’t/couldn’t take the transfer.
I knew people who were building houses that couldn’t afford to convert the construction mortgage to a regular mortgage, and then couldn’t sell the house for what they had in it.
>>consumer protection laws to protect people who aren’t as smart<<
Back in the olden days, you got smart or you got screwed.
Now we expect others to take care of us. We need to educate instead of regulate.
Give a man a fish he eats for a day
Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.
We need to teach people to be smart instead of relying on others including the government, to be smart for us. I feel high interests rates are immoral too, but I have taught my children to read what they sign. We don’t fall for it.
Now I do but mainly remember the hostage crisis from his administration. I wasn't interested in politics then, too preoccupied with surviving and my family. I had only my home mortage with a fixed rate, around 5 or 6 percent can't even remember. I had no credit cards then, had two local ones, and only capitulated when I got on the internet. Some you could pay by check, but the one I wanted and still have you couldn't, think you can now. So I put it on my sister's charge card and paid her. Then I thought that was being unfair to her so got my first card.
I have my monthly bills sitting there, will pay them all. I just use one credit card now and try to pay it every month but sometimes money doesn't come in fast enough to cover everything so I have to scramble. Well, that doesn't matter. I'm scaling back on all purchases and especially my credit card use from now on. Just because I've been able to stay on top of my finances is because I've been luckier than some people given my life the way it is.
I'm glad people did react to the high interest rates (and all that accompanied that) and elect Reagan. I didn't start voting again until GHWB. I'm fearing if the Dems get in again this time, I don't know if we'll ever get a chance again. They want to send us to the wilderness I just read on abc comments about the financial crisis.
Then I go to our local paper and see Cheney is having heart problems, had to cancel a fundraiser. Two horrible comments, what a depressing day this is starting out to be. For the life of me, I don't see what they've got against that guy any more than some of the others, especially the ones on the Dem side that got us into this mess, but I'm not giving Republicans a total pass either. What has Cheney done that is so wrong?
I agree you have to be smart. I'm fighting somebody all the time about home repairs. At least my kids don't have to worry - yet - that their mom will do something stupid and get screwed, but I still do anyway by bad workmanship because I try to save. But I never pay until the work is done.
I'm just tired of fighting and worrying about everything and everybody. The city redid part of my sidewalk to take off the curbs for disabled. In 40 years, I've never seen anyone go by with a wheelchair. Strollers, bikes, and trikes, yes. We are in a financial crisis, and the city it's business as usual. They tore up my terrace and exposed a bunch of tree roots. Yesterday they had filled the soil back in, threw down some grass seed, and left all the roots exposed, so rather than fight with them, I go out and have to cut them all out and put more topsoil down which was hard work for me. I'm mad (and still exhausted) and don't know whether I should call and complain or not.
It's like that all the time now. If it's not one thing, it's another.
Cheney hasn’t done anything wrong. I love Dick Cheney. The left can’t stand him because he is obviously very smart and strong, and is unaffected by Democrat smear tactics.
Thank you. That’s exactly what I have believed all along. It’s one of the reasons I so greatly fear for the country, the rabid, irrational hatred.
I’m so sorry for your troubles. It seems the more the government gets into things the more trouble we have.
When we moved into our house, they redid the streets about a year later. They sloped the road the wrong way, now every time it rains we get a lake at the end of our driveway. Really wonderful on those days in MI where it starts as rain and ends as snow. Can we say skating rink?
Yet I know that if someone falls on that, I get sued. So we go through tons of money in salt and the grass won’t grow around it.
Grrrrr.
All the best and I hope it works out for you!
I don't know what you can do about your lake of ice. My neighbor ruined my driveway in back because I have an easement so he had to build his new garage back a ways. I don't use it often and noticed too late that when he excavated for his new garage, they set it so low that I can't use my driveway unless I get a car that is higher off the ground, bottom of my car hangs up.
Grrrrrr. Tomorrow is another day. I took a nap rather than gripe to the city and will be shovelling the dirt that washes out until grass gets established again. I've been so crabby lately; it's either getting older or too much negative news, probably both.
That was sweet of you, and I can't think of how you can fix your problem unless you can find a way to drain the water away before it freezes up. That salt does ruin the soil; I try not to use any more than I have to, but I have to use some. I've got to get a 50# bag of sand B4 winter. Sometimes the ice is so bad I can't get the garbage out now that we have to have carts - and pay more. In the winter, I used to just walk the bags around from the front on the sidewalk or throw in my trunk and drive it around. Has to be in the cart now, and it's hard to get it up the slope back in the garage, end up crawling and dragging it so I won't slip and fall. Grrrrr.
I worry about lawsuits, too, and don't count on my insurance company to make good as I don't trust them any more.
The government sure is good at mucking things up. I was going to say I appreciate basic services like the snow plow because I live on a corner, and one street is a snow route. But the plow goes so fast it throws the snow right back on the sidewalk I just got cleared if it is a fairly deep one. I'd wait for the plow, but they give us so many hours after it stops snowing to have our walks cleared or they do it and charge you megabucks. We never used to have to put up with this stuff before. The more people they hire, the harder it is on us little people with all the rules they impose on us. To make things better for us? No, for them and their expensive new trucks that will empty the carts.
Do you have a lot of city vehicles where you are? I swear every employee drives a brand, spanking new vehicle. That's enough; I ranted too much.
I love the snowplows. I never realized how much until I moved to MI. They don't believe in them. In Cleveland (where I was born) there are 500 for Cuyahoga county. A heavy snow comes and we have a few hours before we are dug out. Here in MI, there are 50 for Wayne County. They do the highways and some of the main roads. When we lived south of here, our street became two ruts in ice. Everyone drove down those ruts. The lady next to me had a low riding car. Every night when she came home, she would bottom out. Finally, her hubby, my hubby and a few other guys cracked the ice leading to their drive so they didn't have to repair the car anymore.
Just before we moved here, a bunch of us were looking into a private snow plowing service to do the street. Yup those taxes worked well for us!!! But hey, I figure I'm alive and kicking. Can't ask for too much more! Venting is good and keeps us from exploding. LOL!
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