The Bankruptcy Bill: a Tutorial in Greed-Campaign cash is worth more than

[papau]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-scheer15mar15.story

ROBERT SCHEER
The Bankruptcy Bill: a Tutorial in Greed
Lesson No. 1 -- Campaign cash is worth more than family values.
Robert Scheer

March 15, 2005

Because they keep revamping and expanding the SAT, I'll propose a new economics puzzler for the test makers' consideration.

Question: What is the difference between a loan shark and a banker?

Answer: Not much. The former uses hired thugs to enforce repayment from the debtors; the latter employs the feds as paid muscle.

Even better would be to make the fast-tracked bankruptcy bill — already passed by the Senate and expected to be approved soon by the House and signed by president — the subject of one of the test's new critical thinking essays. Teens could trace the correlation between the massive campaign contributions of credit card companies and banks and the imminent passage of legislation making it much more difficult for the hopelessly indebted to find the kind of relief offered by enlightened societies for millenniums.

Of course, not many high school students have been taught the central place of class warfare in modern American politics, but the bill would provide an excellent classroom case study in the political economy of greed. Consider it an updating of that old staple of government classes, "How a bill becomes a law." It would accurately place the role of corporate money in clear ascendance over the interests of regular people.

This subject is not an academic one for young Americans, because after high school they will become prime targets for predatory lenders, plastic-peddlers who just love to offer easy lines of credit to kids without jobs or even degrees. Once a student has that first shopping spree at the college bookstore, he or she is often off and running in a cycle of unsecured debt that can last a lifetime.

This exploitation of the naive extends to many Americans who are plagued by seductive credit card offers, despite low or uncertain sources of income and other major risk factors. There is no cap on interest rates; the card companies simply harvest risky debtors, slam 'em with outrageous fees and rates and keep them for decades in indentured servitude because they can't afford to dent the principal.

Yet for the banks, the inevitable surge in bankruptcies caused by these immoral business strategies hasn't slowed this fantastically profitable industry a whit. For all of the whining about deadbeats ripping off the system, credit card companies' annual pretax profits have soared 2½ times in the last decade, and last year was their most profitable in more than 15 years.

So why gut the bankruptcy law now? Greed, pure and simple. And, pathetically, this bankers' dream is becoming a reality through the support of Republicans who have decided, as they often do with social issues, to selectively pick and choose when to follow the teachings of the Bible. <snip>

[peacetalksforall]

1. A number of Congresspeople were voted out of office after the Clinton

impeachment. An act that affects the people without big bucks so adversely is much worse than the Clinton impeachment - it affects the stability and welfare of a country while the wealthy go their way. The Yea votes were a vote against the people and all who vote for this have to go. If abuses have to be addressed then address them, but don't take down those who don't abuse.

I am sick about the way our so-called leaders take care of abusers.

Clinton, who said she would have voted Yea, has to go, plus Stabenow and all the others.

Bite the bullet of realization and push them out.

Put your foot down against the thieving of the non-wealthy citizens.