Haunting the Web Since 1999
Wonkblog’s Matt O’Brien briefly surveys the downward pressure on our sinking middle class. “[I]t’s still a heckuva lot better than households in the bottom 25 percent, whose wealth never grew during the good times, and then plunged 60 percent during the bad ones. That’s because, for both the middle and working classes, real wages have been stagnant the past 30 years, and housing equity has taken a nosedive.”
“‘This is landmark legislation that is going to make the credit card marketplace more transparent and more fair for millions of consumers,’ said Travis B. Plunkett, legislative director for the Consumer Federation of America. ‘In particular, it’s going to prevent credit card companies from suddenly and unjustly increasing interest rates which is pushing many consumers with credit card debt into bankruptcy.’” The Senate passes legislation aimed at reining in the more blatant and arbitrary instances of credit card usury by a vote of 90-5, with a bill expected on President Obama’s desk by Memorial Day.
This sounds like a clear step in the right direction…but funny how times change, isn’t it? It doesn’t seem like all that long ago that many of these same Senators passed the 2005 bankruptcy bill, which dug the financial hole deeper for millions of Americans in the name of an easy buck for the credit card industry. Better late than never, I suppose.
And, while I’m snarfing links from other blogs, two choice entries from PlasticBag: (1) A rather lame “amateur” anti-Gore YouTube video turns out to be the work of GOP agit-prop artists, likely at the behest of Exxon; and (2) to keep up with the times, everyone’s favorite real estate robber baron simulation, Monopoly, is forsaking the multicolored cash for debit cards. “It is inserted into an electronic machine where the banker taps in cardholders’ earnings and payments.“