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[Tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>]

A $25,000,000 bribe to Bush & Company, whose Treasury Dept. gleefully 
blocked ALL States from attempting any remedies against the Credit Card 
Mafia.  You KNOW what Bush & Company thinks of States Rights---hey, 
what's wrong with paying 48% interest as long as it is paid to 
BushBuddies by a struggling once Middle Class?


Boston.com      THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING

The Boston Globe <http://www.boston.com/news/globe/>
THOMAS OLIPHANT


 A GOP fleecing of card users

By Thomas Oliphant, Globe Staff  |  August 29, 2004

/NEW YORK
/OF ALL the business tycoons assembling for their favorite party's 
convention this week, none will get a warmer, perk-filled welcome than 
the personal finance crowd that has figured out how to imprison tens of 
millions of ordinary Americans with interest charges and other fees 
worthy of loan sharks.They are profiteering on a growing mountain of 
debt that is increasingly crucial to meeting expenses in a "recovery" 
marked by stagnant household income.

What ought to be called the usury business has earned its caviar from 
President Bush's Republican Party. The banking, insurance, and real 
estate interests have ponied up more than $25 million for Bush this 
year, six times more than in 2000.

And the biggest corporate supporter of all, as it was four years ago, is 
a monster called MBNA -- the largest of all the independent credit 
card-issuing companies, that is now expanding its lucrative (thanks to 
Bush) business worldwide. Its now-retired chairman, Charles M. Cawley, 
was an original Bush fund-raising Pioneer and still is one, and his 
successors have continued the tradition of trading cash for national 
policy. The president has earned his largesse.

The latest goodie was a ruling from Bush's Treasury Department 
preempting all state laws, notably in California, that have sought to 
put a brake on some of the most abusive credit card practices -- a 
remarkable flip-flop for a conservative government supposedly respectful 
of states' rights---why should a State protect their citizens from the 
Credit Card Mafia?

The campaign cash is also gushing because the personal finance people 
know Bush will back another attempt in Congress to make it harder for 
Americans to escape, via bankruptcy, the debtor prisons constructed for 
them.

The usury industry now has another reason to give Bush money: John 
Kerry's decision to take aim at one of the most abusive of the credit 
card scams -- the sudden jacking up of interest charges on consumers who 
are making their card payments on time. Millions of Americans know too 
well how this works: You miss a payment on some other bill (it could be 
a $50 phone bill) and all of a sudden your credit card interest rate 
soars to anywhere from 30 percent to as much as 48 percent.

In the racket, they call this "universal default," but it amounts to 
changing the terms of a loan in the middle of the game. Kerry would end 
this practice, he announced last week, with the stroke of a regulatory pen.

The finance business is also opposed -- and therefore so is Bush -- to 
another Kerry proposal that would require full disclosure to families of 
the true cost of making only those deceptively small minimum payments 
the credit card bosses entice people to make. The reason they do this is 
that they want to trap you into high-interest debt for as long as they 
can, and telling you the true cost interferes with their business strategy.

For example, on a credit card debt of $9,000 (par for the course), 
minimum payments at 15 percent will keep you paying for 39 years at a 
total cost of $23,000.

The home mortgage people, trapping more and more Americans of modest as 
well as median means in the same kinds of prisons, aren't much better. 
Here, legislation is needed, and for all those who listen to the Bush 
propaganda about Kerry's Senate record (a domestic version of the smear 
on his Vietnam service), he is well known as one of housing's most 
consistent champions.

So-called "subprime" mortgages are an excellent way to help lower income 
families make their most important investment, but they come at a very 
high cost. Many housing experts believe they are unnecessary for half 
their present holders. It's not a minor financial matter; over 30 years, 
a subprime can cost an extra $400,000-plus on a typical home.

Naturally, the real estate and finance folks backing Bush want to block 
Kerry and protect their gravy train. In particular they want to protect 
the mechanisms for abuse -- penalties for early prepayment, delayed or 
"balloon" payments that require still more financing, and ridiculous 
insurance mandates requiring up-front payments no matter how long a 
mortgage is held.

As the Census Bureau reminded us last week, incomes are stagnant three 
years into an anemic recovery. At $43,000, median household income (half 
make more, half make less) is actually lower than it was in 2000. For 
the rich, tax cuts cover higher costs; for everyone else, they didn't 
come close to matching 50 percent increases in health insurance 
premiums, $2 per gallon gasoline, higher local taxes, and higher tuition 
expenses.

This means that for a huge portion of the public, debt is how people 
keep up with current expenses, and the usury industry is doing its best 
to make sure that that elusive goal is always kept just out of reach. On 
top of all the other higher burdens on working families, credit card and 
mortgage interest scams have added something like $30 billion to the 
burden of just getting by.

The big shots gathering here will make sure Bush has no answer. Kerry does.

Thomas Oliphant's e-mail address is oliphant AT globe.com.  

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