New Safeguards for Credit Cards

Earlier today, President Obama met with top executives from some of the biggest credit card companies in the nation as part of comprehensive effort to reform credit card regulations. The plan seeks to curb abuses -- making sure that terms of use are clear, preventing unexpected rate hikes, and safeguarding against unfair practices.

After the meeting, President Obama said:

Credit cards are an important convenience for a lot of people. They are a source of unsecured debt for a lot of individuals and small businesses who are creating jobs; a lot of startups may use credit cards for that purpose. We think that's important, and so we want to preserve the credit card market.

But he was keen to note that new safeguards are necessary for the American consumer:

I think that there has to be strong and reliable protections for consumers -- protections that ban unfair rate increases and forbid abusive fees and penalties. The days of any time, any reason rate hikes and late fee traps have to end.

The President went on to declare that statements must be "written in plain language and be in plain sight" with "transparency and clarity." Consumers must be able to comparison shop between credit card companies, so contract terms and deals must be available online. Moreover, President Obama supported the creation of default "plain vanilla" credit cards so that every user has access to a card he or she is comfortable with. He also called for more accountability, effective oversight and effective enforcement to prevent abuses from credit issuers.

The President's meeting followed the approval yesterday of the Credit Cardholder's Bill of Rights by the House Financial Services Committee. The bill -- which targets arbitrary interest rate increases on existing balances, charging unmerited interest on debt already paid, and unfair late fees -- which likely will reach the House floor next week.

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Prosecute Bush... Forget About Healthcare

I am a person who believes that you have to choose your battles. I also believe that left-leaning Democrats are making a huge political mistake by pushing for prosecution of Bush administration...

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The Right Track

Three months into the new administration, President Obama's approval ratings remain high. This in itself is hardly unusual for a newly inaugurated president, but today we learned of a turn-around that is far from ordinary. The Associated Press reported:

For the first time in years, more Americans than not say the country is headed in the right direction, a sign that Barack Obama has used the first 100 days of his presidency to lift the public's mood and inspire hopes for a brighter future.

Intensely worried about their personal finances and medical expenses, Americans nonetheless appear realistic about the time Obama might need to turn things around, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll. It shows most Americans consider their new president to be a strong, ethical and empathetic leader who is working to change Washington.

As the POLITICO also reported today, no recent president has seen such a dramatic turn-around in such a short period. The number of Americans who believe that the nation is headed in the right direction has roughly tripled since the election.

From the beginning, the President has warned that the road to economic recovery will be a long one, and that challenges the country faces as a result of decades of inaction will not be solved overnight. But in these first few months, President Obama has made clear the direction in which he hopes to move, and many early steps have already begun to have an impact on the lives of everyday Americans. Tax cuts for working families, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the expansion of health care programs for children and the recently unemployed, and job creation from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act have all helped to place the country on that right track.

For many of you, these were the same issues that you campaigned so long and so hard for. In these first few months, how have you been affected by these first steps? If these programs or others have impacted your life or lives of people in your community, let us know in the comments below.

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New Media Tech Delegation Visits Iraq #Iraqtech

The U.S. State Department sponsored a delegation of New Media tech executives from companies like Google, Blue State Digital, YouTube, Twitter, and others in a "fact-finding" mission to Iraq. The...

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President Obama in Iowa: "A Choice Between
Prosperity and Decline"

President Obama returned to Iowa yesterday, where he toured a wind production facility which now occupies part of a factory that had been shuttered in 2007. The factory, the President Obama noted, is "alive again with new industry," as a symbol of a new energy economy.

From WhiteHouse.gov:

The President placed what was happening in Iowa in the context of two centuries of energy innovation in America, but noted America’s leadership in innovation had always been coupled with an alarming rise consumption. The President ran down the all-too-familiar list of problems our energy consumption and oil dependence brings, from those people face every day like prices at the gas pump, to those that have a broader but equally serious impact like the trade deficit, constraints on foreign policy, and the prospect of irrevocable climate change left as a burden for out children.
 
As the President has stated again and again, these problems also represent a fundamental weakness in our economy which will prevent long term stability as long as we refuse to address them. And while those interests who have profited off of this weakness have aligned to defend the status quo and paint change as a danger, the President forcefully framed what this choice is all about:
 
"We can't afford that approach anymore -- not when the cost for our economy, for our country, and for our planet is so high.  So on this Earth Day, it is time for us to lay a new foundation for economic growth by beginning a new era of energy exploration in America.  That's why I'm here.

Now, the choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy.  The choice we face is between prosperity and decline.  We can remain the world's leading importer of oil, or we can become the world's leading exporter of clean energy.  We can allow climate change to wreak unnatural havoc across the landscape, or we can create jobs working to prevent its worst effects.  We can hand over the jobs of the 21st century to our competitors, or we can confront what countries in Europe and Asia have already recognized as both a challenge and an opportunity:  The nation that leads the world in creating new energy sources will be the nation that leads the 21st-century global economy.
 
America can be that nation. America must be that nation."

Read the President's full remarks . . . 

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Obama: Just Say 'No' to 'Banksta' Jerks

Obama and

the Big Dogs

By William Greider
The Nation

April 22, 2009 - The big dogs of banking and finance are playing a rough game of bump-and-run with our president, trying to knock him off balance and demonstrate their dominance. The best names in Wall Street--Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase--pumped out happy talk about quarterly earnings, then announced that they intend to give back the government's money (more than $50 billion, if counted honestly). The crisis, they announce, is over for them. They want to be free of official meddling in their private affairs. The arrogance is breathtaking, even for Wall Street bankers.

Forget the financial numbers. What we are witnessing is a high-stakes melodrama of glandular politics. This rival power center, though gravely weakened, is contesting for control with the president. Think of dogs circling one another to establish who will be leader of the pack. For three decades, the Wall Street guys in good suits have ruled the economy, demanding deference from the political system and from corporate managements, too. Those who failed to follow them were punished, either through stock prices or election financing. Despite their catastrophic failure, the surviving bankers and financiers are trying to hold on to their thrones.


For the last couple of weeks, they have poked the kid in the chest and mocked his economic advisers with condescending gestures. Jamie Dimon of the Morgan bank handed Treasury Secretary Geithner a fake check for $25 billion. They threw complicating wrenches into the government's financial rescue plan. Their essential message, crudely colloquial, was intended for Barack Obama : "You don't have the balls to take charge of us."

The question is: Are they right? Obama seems cowed by their bluster. He certainly looks reluctant to take them on in a public way or refute their version of reality. This president wants to govern through public-spirited cooperation. The financial titans play hardball in return. I say "seems" because we do not yet know about Obama and how he will resolve this mess. The administration has been stalling action on the troubled banks, as if it believes in its own wishful forecasts about an early recovery for the economy. The bankers trumped him by announcing, hey, things are already better for us. So back off.

The bankers think they have the president cornered. His rescue plan cannot possibly succeed without much more money--hundreds of billions more--that Congress will be extremely reluctant to provide (Obama hasn't yet had the nerve to ask for it). The bankers' offer to return their welfare checks is a cute gesture, but a bluff. They know Obama's government is committed to save them, whatever it costs. As usual, the big dogs want to have it both ways--take the public's money but promise nothing in return.

Roughly speaking, that has been Obama's posture, too. He acts as though the old order must be restored with public money, but without forceful government direction. He can call their bluff if he has the courage--shut down a couple of big banks, take control of the system--and the public would cheer. During the campaign, Obama demonstrated he is a great teacher--his political vision changed the country. But we do not yet know if he is a confident political leader willing to use his power against formidable adversaries in order to get his way. Every potential rival is now taking his measure. Weakness would doom him.

The financial crisis poses the first great moral dilemma of the Obama presidency. Sometime in the next few months, he will be compelled to choose between his technocratic inclinations--rescuing certain financial institutions deemed "too big to fail"--and the obvious moral wrongness of his policy of rewarding the very players who caused our national disaster. The broad public does not doubt that this is morally wrong. I saw a Zogby opinion poll the other day that said only 6 percent of the public supports the financial bailouts. Obama is on the wrong side of that bipartisan consensus.

The moral dilemma in the financial crisis is oddly parallel to Obama's reluctant approach on the torture issue. The president bravely made public the sickening documents from the Bush administration that reveal how CIA and Justice Department officials rationalized their illegalities and authorized crimes against humanity. Yet the president said it would be wrong to prosecute (or even investigate) any of the CIA agents or military officers who committed these crimes. Likewise, we are told it would be wrong to punish the financial malefactors or look too closely into how they engineered the gross fraud and false valuations that destroyed trillions of dollars in American wealth. Let's not dwell on the past, the president says, let's look forward.

But everything Obama does now--or fails to do--becomes an inescapable precedent for the future, defining the true meaning of law and moral principle. The president's rationale on government-led torture sounds dangerously close to the line of defense invoked by Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. We were only following orders. CIA barbarians are invited to hide behind that excuse.

So in a sense are the bankers from Wall Street. They were merely doing what the financial markets wanted and what the government allowed. Rescuing these players now, while declining to force fundamental structural changes on the banking system, would essentially ratify the bankers' arrogant beliefs. They are too important to fail. The government will never let it happen. Despite their destructive behavior, they will be allowed to remain in power and free to do it all again.

I do not doubt the president's good intentions, but if he is not vigilant, the "Obama precedent" could prove to be an ugly legacy. His name might someday be linked to wilful evasion of misdeeds and the degradation of law and moral principle. When great crimes are committed in the future by government or by powerful private interests, people in authority might decide to let them go by, citing the national interest and recalling how Barack Obama dealt with similar events.

About William Greider

National affairs correspondent William Greider has been a political journalist for more than thirty-five years. A former Rolling Stone and Washington Post editor, he is the author of the national bestsellers One World, Ready or Not, Secrets of the Temple, Who Will Tell The People, The Soul of Capitalism (Simon & Schuster) and--due out in February from Rodale--Come Home, America.

http://progressivesforobama.blogspot.com is the left and progressive pole in a wider pro-Obama movement. We're working for his victory, but we have our own independent views. We like Green Jobs, Out Now and Single Payer Health Care.

Read The Full Article:
http://progressivesforobama.blogspot.com/2009/04/obama-just-say-no-to-banksta-jer
ks.html

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Obama: Just Say 'No' to Speculative Capital

Obama and the Big Dogs

By William Greider

The Nation

April 22, 2009 - The big dogs of banking and finance are playing a rough game of bump-and-run with our president, trying to knock him off balance and demonstrate their dominance. The best names in Wall Street--Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase--pumped out happy talk about quarterly earnings, then announced that they intend to give back the government's money (more than $50 billion, if counted honestly). The crisis, they announce, is over for them. They want to be free of official meddling in their private affairs. The arrogance is breathtaking, even for Wall Street bankers.

Forget the financial numbers. What we are witnessing is a high-stakes melodrama of glandular politics. This rival power center, though gravely weakened, is contesting for control with the president. Think of dogs circling one another to establish who will be leader of the pack. For three decades, the Wall Street guys in good suits have ruled the economy, demanding deference from the political system and from corporate managements, too. Those who failed to follow them were punished, either through stock prices or election financing. Despite their catastrophic failure, the surviving bankers and financiers are trying to hold on to their thrones.

For the last couple of weeks, they have poked the kid in the chest and mocked his economic advisors with condescending gestures. Jamie Dimon of the Morgan bank handed Treasury Secretary Geithner a fake check for $25 billion. They threw complicating wrenches into the government's financial rescue plan. Their essential message, crudely colloquial, was intended for Barack Obama : "You don't have the balls to take charge of us."

The question is: Are they right? Obama seems cowed by their bluster. He certainly looks reluctant to take them on in a public way or refute their version of reality. This president wants to govern through public-spirited cooperation. The financial titans play hardball in return. I say "seems" because we do not yet know about Obama and how he will resolve this mess. The administration has been stalling action on the troubled banks, as if it believes in its own wishful forecasts about an early recovery for the economy. The bankers trumped him by announcing, hey, things are already better for us. So back off.

The bankers think they have the president cornered. His rescue plan cannot possibly succeed without much more money--hundreds of billions more--that Congress will be extremely reluctant to provide (Obama hasn't yet had the nerve to ask for it). The bankers' offer to return their welfare checks is a cute gesture, but a bluff. They know Obama's government is committed to save them, whatever it costs. As usual, the big dogs want to have it both ways--take the public's money but promise nothing in return.

Roughly speaking, that has been Obama's posture, too. He acts as though the old order must be restored with public money, but without forceful government direction. He can call their bluff if he has the courage--shut down a couple of big banks, take control of the system--and the public would cheer. During the campaign, Obama demonstrated he is a great teacher--his political vision changed the country. But we do not yet know if he is a confident political leader willing to use his power against formidable adversaries in order to get his way. Every potential rival is now taking his measure. Weakness would doom him.

The financial crisis poses the first great moral dilemma of the Obama presidency. Sometime in the next few months, he will be compelled to choose between his technocratic inclinations--rescuing certain financial institutions deemed "too big to fail"--and the obvious moral wrongness of his policy of rewarding the very players who caused our national disaster. The broad public does not doubt that this is morally wrong. I saw a Zogby opinion poll the other day that said only 6 percent of the public supports the financial bailouts. Obama is on the wrong side of that bipartisan consensus.

The moral dilemma in the financial crisis is oddly parallel to Obama's reluctant approach on the torture issue. The president bravely made public the sickening documents from the Bush administration that reveal how CIA and Justice Department officials rationalized their illegalities and authorized crimes against humanity. Yet the president said it would be wrong to prosecute (or even investigate) any of the CIA agents or military officers who committed these crimes. Likewise, we are told it would be wrong to punish the financial malefactors or look too closely into how they engineered the gross fraud and false valuations that destroyed trillions of dollars in American wealth. Let's not dwell on the past, the president says, let's look forward.

But everything Obama does now--or fails to do--becomes an inescapable precedent for the future, defining the true meaning of law and moral principle. The president's rationale on government-led torture sounds dangerously close to the line of defense invoked by Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. We were only following orders. CIA barbarians are invited to hide behind that excuse.

So in a sense are the bankers from Wall Street. They were merely doing what the financial markets wanted and what the government allowed. Rescuing these players now, while declining to force fundamental structural changes on the banking system, would essentially ratify the bankers' arrogant beliefs. They are too important to fail. The government will never let it happen. Despite their destructive behavior, they will be allowed to remain in power and free to do it all again.

I do not doubt the president's good intentions, but if he is not vigilant, the "Obama precedent" could prove to be an ugly legacy. His name might someday be linked to wilful evasion of misdeeds and the degradation of law and moral principle. When great crimes are committed in the future by government or by powerful private interests, people in authority might decide to let them go by, citing the national interest and recalling how Barack Obama dealt with similar events.

About William Greider

National affairs correspondent William Greider has been a political journalist for more than thirty-five years. A former Rolling Stone and Washington Post editor, he is the author of the national bestsellers One World, Ready or Not, Secrets of the Temple, Who Will Tell The People, The Soul of Capitalism (Simon & Schuster) and--due out in February from Rodale--Come Home, America. http://progressivesforobama.blogspot.com is the left and progressive pole in a wider pro-Obama movement. We're working for his victory, but we have our own independent views. We like Green Jobs, Out Now and Single Payer Health Care.

Read The Full Article:
http://progressivesforobama.blogspot.com/2009/04/just-say-to-speculative-capital.
html

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