Bailouts come from taxes paid by you and me, so have we not ALREADY paid the banks EXTRA money they are NOT REALLY ENTITLED TO in the first place?

Where is OUR DEBT FORGIVENESS?

Following the lead of Detroit auto companies, the Chief Financial Officers (CEOs) of major banks such as JP Morgan, Goldman, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo were reprimanded from a House of Representatives committee.  As the CEOs testified before the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) delivered what are most likely the most scathing remarks, opening with:

“To all the captains of the universe sitting here before all of us, all of my life I have been in disagreement with the banking industry.”

According to the Washington Post, Waters then accused the CEOs of increasing interest rates on credit cardholders, and implied that this is contradictory to their simultaneous acceptance of billions in bailout money from American taxpayers.  Bank of America executive Ken Lewis replied that his bank increased interest rates on only 9 percent of its customers in 2008 (How many customers are we talking about, here, anyway?  BoA services 150 countries.  So, even if, as a conservative estimate, it only has 300 Million clients, 0.09 * 300 * 10^6 = 27,000,000! Yes, 27 Million Clients being screwed!).

It is not surprising that Waters is against credit card issuers raising rates on customers.  She is one of the original sponsors of the Credit Cardholder’s Bill of Rights, a piece of legislation that would prevent issuers from raising rates for “arbitrary” reasons.

Tell us your thoughts! Please comment below…

Source:

Bandyk, Matthew. “Maxine Waters: Banks Screwing Credit Card Users While Rolling in Bailout Money” Risky Business.

11 Febuary 2010.  U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT

http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/risky-business/2009/02/11/maxine-waters-banks-screwing-credit-card-users-while-rolling-in-bailout-money