It's the Banking Industry Stupid!
They are the ones killing the economy and making a pinata out of your retirement.
The brainiest of the brainy meet in Washington to discuss an economic stimulus package and every American given $600.00 to pay their electric bill will bring back a thriving economy. Good grief. Where do we get these people from. Mars?
It all makes perfect sense to me. Lets charge the highest interest rates for loans given to those who least can afford it and then look for a tax payer bailout when they walk away from the loan unable to pay.
Do you see the fed lowering the interest rates? Yes. Are they lending money again to middle class borrowers? No. Does it make the interest rate on your credit card go down because it costs the banks less? No. This does nothing to stimulate an economy and continues to rob the middle class of their hard earned money. It only helps the banks.
The next time you hear one of these politicians begging the Fed to lower interest rates as part of stimulus to boost the economy, don't think it has anything to do with helping you. Even if you think you haven't been late on a crdit card payment, read the fine print and find out what your interest rate is. You will probably be shocked to find that your paying as high as 29.75%!
32 States sued the banking industry for fraudulent late charges to accumulate billions in fees and the US government backed the banking industry and they continue to allow them to do it.
It's easy enough to lower the rate. Just call the bank and tell them your going to close the account or switch the balance to another card offering 1% on transfers for the next 12 months.
Whatever you do, don't do that because you acting responsible by not allowing them to rip you off will just lower your credit score. The fact that it's so easy to lower the rate tells me they know they are robbiing you blind. Why did they do it in the first place? Because they know they get that extra money for months before you notice it and they are raking in billions of free money from your pockets. As it stands the banks number one priority is to get every dime out of your pocket and into their clutches. If you don't believe that, just ask yourself why you get 30 pre-approved credit card offers in the mail every week that aren't really pre approved. This is fraudulent advertising and if you are dumb enough to think you really are "pre approved". If you apply, they will check your credit and if they don't like what they see, they deny the card.
Believe it or not, it shows up on your credit report as an enquiry not being specific enough to let the next creditor know if you got the card or not. As far as they see it, they count it as though you did get the card and calculate that into your risk factor and lowering your score. This in turn raises your interest rate. Any enquiry will lower your score. Lets face it, as a consumer, as a borrower, you are a pinata and the corporations and banks are having one hell of a party beating your retirement with a stick.
Now most people do without a lot of what I pay for. Some people will drive without auto insurance. Others have no health insurance and so on. Everyone living in this country should have a right to pay for their basic necessities first before they pay the government a dime. If I'm not mistaken, the IRS still gives the same $700.00 per year deduction for gasoline expense that it did when gas was $1.25 per gallon. If true, this is flat out theft of billions of tax paying dollars. The tax code needs to be simplified and updated to benefit the tax payer not bankrupt him.
$150.00 late fee for a $600.00 car payment that's post marked one hour late? No wonder we have no retirement savings! The banking industry is the blame for the sub prime mortgage problems but yet the poor sucker that can't understand 300 pages of legal mortgage jargon is the one to blame? I have mortgage brokers that have turned over mortgage agreements from one of the top lenders (One That Is Being Sued) to an attorney that can't even understand the details. How the hell is some poor schmuck picking strawberries going to understand it? The banking industry is totally to blame for their own demise and the destruction of the economic health of this country and not one candidate is making this an issue?
Kathleen Austin Fitz gave the best explaination I've heard stating that the "insiders" that are determining the direction of the country are like a tape worm that injects poison into your stomach to change your eating habits. The poison changes your desire to eatwhat you want or need to stay healthy to needs and desires of the tapeworm.
The list below are economic stimulus ideas, not giving people $600.00 to feed back to the corporations ripping you off. I'm sure most of that would be taken by banking fees and corporate accounts anyway. Electric bills, car payments, etc. More corporate welfare is the answer?
OK smart ass, how do we stimulate the economy?
1. How about limits on the banking industry and what they can charge for interest rates? 29.75% interest on a credit card? Let's make it 12% maximum. The reduction to 12% would bring more money to the middle class than George could ever think of giving away as part of an economic stimulus package. They used to arrest mobsters for charging 30% interest on a loan and called it extortion. Now it's common practice within the banking industry.
2. Instead of giving 100 million dollar bonus's to CEO's that bankrupt companies and the economy of the world lets start putting them in jail. After all, you get a bonus for doing a good job, you don't get a bonus for destroying the economy. Lets put confidence back into the system so people will invest without fear of being robbed blind.
3. Lets reestablish the poverty level in this country. A family of four making $7,000.00 a year is not poverty. It's blasphemy. Yet the IRS uses these figures to define poverty for taxation. I have an idea. Lets add up all the basic necessities one needs to be within the law and survive in todays America. Add all the insurances. Again, (corporations). Health insurance, car insurance and house insurance. Security that one should have to protect themselves. Now add utilities, (corporations). Electric, water, gas heat and phone. Add your food, clothing, car payments, mortgage and auto gas. That's 12 substantially large bills a month that you really can't live without. This does not factor in taxes you pay on top of all these bills. Now ask yourself how many checks do you get a month? One? What are the chances your one paycheck four times a month can equal your bills? Zero to none. OK, now we have a problem. I did this in 1999 and the total came to $43,000 per year just to cover basic necessities everyone should have.
4. Lets start charging Corporations $40.00 every time they mistakenly double bill us or $40.00 every time a bank charges you late fees when you aren't late with your payments.
5. Bring the home equity values back to where they were. Give home owners credit for $100,000.00 worth of remodeling they did to gain equity. The banks coming along and changing the rules to only include square footage is just another example of how they are destroying the housing market by depleting the equity in homes even further beyond the drop in housing prices . Granite counter tops mean more to a buyer than tile so why does it mean nothing now to your equity? The reduction of these values evaporated much of the equity borrowers had to invest in new property.
6. Why not charge corporations for the time we spend on the phone trying to get to customer service to close an account. Consumers could rake in billions of dollars in lost time. If the corporations can attend to you immediately to sign you up and take your money, they can sure as hell tend to you to discontinue service.
7. Lets bring back credit scores that where except-able for a mortgage two years ago. Raising the credit score to a score only millionaires have is dissolving the credit applicants. I got my mortgage seven years ago with a credit score or 700 and never missed a payment. It was perfectly fine back then but now because of over reaction you can't get a mortgage with anything lower than 740. Most people that run businesses and utilize credit cards don't have credit scores that high even though their credit is good so it makes little sense to cut off borrowers that otherwise have a great credit history. We need to re-access what constitutes "Bad Credit" as well.
Any meaningless activity on a credit report should not constitute a lower score.
Can you not see the connection here between the elections, corporations, the banking industry and the corruption? This is not an issue with the Presidential candidates? It's not even worth a mention! Are people in America totally blind or just plain numb from the neck up? I can pretty much guarantee a tax payer bailout to the tune of billions even though banks continue to rip off the consumer with fraudulent late charges.
This is the new Mafia but backed by the US Government and we all are the victims. It is costing us, our future and our children's future. Economic stimulus? It sure sounds good doesn't it? Sounds like they care? Sounds like they feel your pain? Yea, believe Hillary's tears and get what you all deserve. That $600.00 will only end up in the pockets of the corporations to pay for your heating oil, electricity, car payment and so on. What the hell is that going to do to stimulate the economy? It's just another corporate welfare program paid again by tax payers. A band-aid to heal a severed artery.
I once heard a friend say, "My mortgage is $4,000.00. When I make a payment only $500.00 goes to the balance and $3,500.00 goes to interest. I can afford to pay my mortgage, I can't afford the interest".
