Forum Post: Not Too Big to Jail: Why Eliot Spitzer Is Wall Street's Worst Nightmare
Posted 11 years ago on Aug. 20, 2013, 5:54 p.m. EST by LeoYo
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Not Too Big to Jail: Why Eliot Spitzer Is Wall Street's Worst Nightmare
Tuesday, 20 August 2013 09:16 By Ellen Brown, Web of Debt | News Analysis
Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. . . . These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.
Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers. . . . [A]s New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. . . .
Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye. . . . The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). . . . In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government’s actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules. But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.
Abracadabra, You're a Part-Timer: How Corporate America Used the Great Recession to Turn Good Jobs Into Bad Ones
Tuesday, 20 August 2013 14:17 By Barbara Garson, TomDispatch | News Analysis
Watch closely: I’m about to demystify the sleight-of-hand by which good jobs were transformed into bad jobs, full-time workers with benefits into freelancers with nothing, during the dark days of the Great Recession.
Family Evicted after Mother Killed by Gunman
http://news.yahoo.com/family-evicted-mother-killed-gunman-144936215.html
DENVER (AP) — Federal housing officials are condemning a decision by the Denver Housing Authority to evict the relatives of a mother killed by a rampaging gunman three days after her slaying, saying there is room for compassion in federal law.
Housing and Urban Development spokesman Jerry Brown said Tuesday his agency hopes Denver will reconsider after the victim's mother and autistic son were locked out of their subsidized housing. The personal property of 47-year-old Sandra Roskilly was also seized and turned over to a public administrator.
I rewrote the post below to make it easier to read.
One of the reasons I started www.debtsuspensionrights.blogspot.com was because of an action taken by the Comptroller of the Currency in 2002. They held "hearings" about credit card debt suspension insurance and came up with a bizarre ruling in my opinion.
The Comptroller of the Currency held "hearings" around 2002 and concluded that credit card companies could have a monopoly over the credit card debt suspension insurance they offered their customers. The Comptroller of the Currency had the arrogance and audacity to assert that the credit card companies make sure they charged high enough premiums to not go in debt!
The insurance companies wanted to compete with the credit card companies in offering debt suspension insurance, which would have been a GOOD THING for the consumer, but were rebuffed by the Comptroller's office.
The result was credit card debt suspension insurance premiums that were OVERPRICED 1,000% to 2,000% This egregious over pricing had the chain reaction effect of eliminating a credit card defaulter's best way to prevent a default if they were exposed to a life changing event beyond their control. (such as Hurricane Sandy, identify theft, injured in a car accident, medical emergency, caregiving for a family member, etc.)
The moment a life changing event occurs beyond a consumer's control, the system is designed to basically label that person a miscreant scumbag defaulter who must pay higher interest rates in the future. I feel this area of consumer abuse by wall street should be at the top of the list for the Occupy Wall Street movement.
I have come up with four main issues / solutions that would protect main street from Wall Street, and they are
Reduction of credit card debt suspension insurance premiums by 2000%, This would eliminate debt collector harrassment when people are simply trying to pick up the pieces after a tragedy has occured beyond their control.
Create Reverse mortgage programs that DO NOT require mortgage insurance or the removal of others from the deed (it's unnecessary if the retiree is only going to take out a small monthly draw). Suddenly that home equity goes back into the local economy instead of to the bankers as mortgage insurance premiums.
Educate Judges that Involuntary credit card defaults are a lesser evil than strategic defaulters. Right now judges treat involuntary credit card defaulters identically to those who default on purpose. This is another way of saying, wall street gets a bailout, main street gets a beat down whenever defaults occur.
Create a NEW stock market for main street with it's own rules that are completely independent of wall street for the rich elite who add nothing to society but silly digitally based ponzie schemes that can be replicated over and over.
Please visit www.debtsuspensionrights.blogspot.com and like my facebook page by the same name if you like the solutions as outlined above.