Dems can make it clear corrupt banking would NEVER happen under an open government Dem WH

[blm]

I believe Obama must make this issue one that clearly defines both parties....

...and dare ask the GOP and its mediawhores....

Can you show us the solutions for banking corruption that GOP - Bush - McCain put in THEIR platform in 2004....2008?


Kerry has long been the top lawmaker uncovering global banking corruption and the governments who protect them....no wonder BushInc (inc Diebold) worked 24/7 to steal that election.

Kerry is now one of Obama's top advisers. We CAN make this case. We have the proof that this crisis never would have happened under Kerry.


Memory lane:

August 27, 2004
THE 2004 CAMPAIGN: THE DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM; Kerry Sees Credit Card Abuses, And Promises Steps to End Them
By LOUIS UCHITELLE

Senator John Kerry added a plank to his platform yesterday, promising to push for legislation that would curb what his campaign describes as abusive practices in credit card and mortgage lending.

The proposals coincided with the announcement of new Census Bureau data showing that family and household income, adjusted for inflation, had fallen over the first three years of the Bush administration. The decline came as consumer debt rose, and the new plank promised relief for wage earners in straitened circumstances.

''Abusive lending practices can take a huge bite out of the incomes of families who are working and can barely pay their credit card bills,'' Robert Gordon, Mr. Kerry's director of domestic policy, said.

Companies that issue credit cards, mainly banks, often double the interest rates if a cardholder is late with a monthly payment or the holder's creditworthiness is challenged. Mr. Kerry would require notice before each rate increase and limit the increase to a few percentage points.

''There is no proportionality now in these increases,'' Gene Sperling, an economic adviser to Mr. Kerry, said. ''They can go from 8 to 28 percent.''

A Kerry administration ''would ask Congress to legislate standards and to direct the Federal Trade Commission and bank regulators to impose regulations consistent with those standards,'' Mr. Sperling said. Much of this would be achieved through amendments to the Truth in Lending Act, he and Mr. Gordon said.

Credit card lenders would also be required to disclose, in prominent type on bills, how long it would take to pay off a debt, and the cost in interest if the card holder made only minimum monthly payments.

A California law imposed this standard, but credit card issuers challenged it in court in 2002, and the Bush administration's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency sided with the issuers. The comptroller argued that only federal regulators could impose such a restriction on nationally chartered banks and that his office did not plan to do so. The state lost the case.

Mr. Gordon said that some minimum payments were so low that they barely kept up with interest costs or fell behind them, in which case the balance could never be repaid.

Other changes proposed by the Kerry campaign would require lenders to forgo penalty charges when they allowed card holders to go beyond their borrowing caps. A cardholder with a $5,000 credit limit, for example, can face a penalty for reaching $5,200 even if the card company approved the charge that put the total over $5,000.

Mr. Kerry's principal mortgage proposal would prohibit lenders from using balloon mortgages in most subprime loans, which often go to low-income people at higher rates.

[Dreamer Tatum]

1. That's a nonstarter - subprime lending thrived under Clinton

It's just a fact...Conseco, Ocwen, Associates, New Century...the list is very long and indistinguished, I'm afraid. This mess has been going on for a while now.

[blm]

2. I said Open Government Democrat - Clinton is NOT an open government Democrat

and his deep-sixing of BCCI's outstanding matters throughout the 90s to protect Poppy Bush and Jackson Stephens is proof of that.

[beachmom]

3. That's why we dodged a bullet getting Obama as our nominee.

The Repubs can point their fingers at Clinton, but Obama had NOTHING to do with any of that in the '90s.

[blm]

9. so simple and true even a PUMA should be able to understand it.

.

[mod mom]

5. Amen to that- he repealed Glass-Steagall (which helped create our current disaster):

Clinton, Republicans agree to deregulation of US financial system (November 1999)
An agreement between the Clinton administration and congressional Republicans, reached during all-night negotiations which concluded in the early hours of October 22, sets the stage for passage of the most sweeping banking deregulation bill in American history, lifting virtually all restraints on the operation of the giant monopolies which dominate the financial system.


The proposed Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 would do away with restrictions on the integration of banking, insurance and stock trading imposed by the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, one of the central pillars of Roosevelt's New Deal. Under the old law, banks, brokerages and insurance companies were effectively barred from entering each others' industries, and investment banking and commercial banking were separated.


The certain result of repeal of Glass-Steagall will be a wave of mergers surpassing even the colossal combinations of the past several years. The Wall Street Journalwrote, "With the stroke of the president's pen, investment firms like Merrill Lynch & Co. and banks like Bank of America Corp., are expected to be on the prowl for acquisitions." The financial press predicted that the most likely mergers would come from big banks acquiring insurance companies, with John Hancock, Prudential and The Hartford all expected to be targeted.

-snip

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/clintons-legacy-has-caught-up.php

[karynnj]

4. I can't find as much on Obama, but what she says is true had Kerry taken office in 2005

I agree with BLM, that Obama will likely be more like Kerry on these issues, than like Clinton.

As to Kerry, if Republican friends argue that this would be the same or worse under Kerry, give them the link to this speech Kerry gave 2 weeks after losing the election in the Senate. I love this speech, which I first heard yesterday,which calls for sensible fiscal policy. (At parts, you can picture the Senator replaced by Jimmy Steward.) http://www.jkmediasource.org/node/23

If nothing else, it shows that Kerry's votes on the $87 billion were as he has said votes of principle - he thought it was wrong to not pay for the war, while taxes were being cut - the Yes vote was for the version that rolled back the tax cut on the wealthiest to pay for it. Those votes, rather than showing a flip flop, were absolutely consistent with his fiscal policy over his entire career.

[blm]

6. I can't imagine Dems would cut that out of the 2008 platform.

.

[karynnj]

7. I seriously doubt they did - especially as Obama has spoken

of the problems at least as far back as 2007, but I didn't have a link. I do think it important that we can show that at least as far back as 2004, fixing the regulation was a Democratic position.

[blm]

8. Yes - that way Dems can show we ARE the solution and GOPs are the PROBLEM.

.

[politicasista]

10. K&R

:kick: