Part of the Dodd-Frank financial
reform bill - at best a very tepid attempt to reign in the excesses of the
financial industry – was the creation of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.
The CFPB, a brainchild of Elizabeth Warren, now a senator from Massachusetts,
was one of the only good things to come out of the act. Dodd-Frank’s already
weak improvements in regulating the financial industry are currently being
further watered down by a massive bankster lobbying effort. No matter how low
the thieving banksters get, there always seems to be another moral nadir for
them to plumb.
Warren was naturally slated to be
nominated for the head of the CFPB, but since she’d certainly have faced stiff
opposition from the Repugs, Obama was too chickenshit to nominate her. His
fecklessness, in this case at least, was a great gift to the people, since Warren
was then free to contest a senate seat which she won. Obama went on to nominate
Richard Cordray, also a good pick for the post, but since the Repugs hate the
idea of financial regulation as a matter of principle, they’re doing everything
they can to block his appointment unless or until they can weaken the
commission’s mandate into worthlessness.
Had Obama nominated Warren she’d
be stuck in limbo, rather than be the strongest voice for banking and finance
reform in the Senate. Lately she’s been pushing the idea of pegging student
loan interest at the same level as what the big banks are paying. Student loan
rates are soon to rise from 3.4% to 6.8% if new legislation isn’t passed. This
is part of the cockamamie way politics is made in Washington, with temporary
fixes to long-term problems that only require the same shit sausage to be
recycled again later. Meanwhile the banks are paying 0.75% so she’s been asking
why students should be paying 9 times as much interest as the banksters.
It gets worse: The US government
earned a cool $51 billion from the student loan program last year. So the US is
making a lot of money off of the backs of struggling students at the same time
it is paying the banks to take its money. When you charge less than the rate of
inflation, you are essentially giving the money away. One of the ways the
banksters have been using that free money is to turn around and buy US
treasuries - which are now paying about 2%. This free money is one of the
reasons why the banks just posted their best profits ever.
Senator Warren will hold their
feet to the fire. They’ll get away with their shenanigans for now because they
own the government, but Warren will be relentless in changing the paradigm and
I dare say, if she chose to run for president in 2016 she’d give Hillary a run
for her money.
So thank you Mr. Feckless
President for giving us Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Student loan debt, at $1.1 trillion,
now exceeds credit card debt, with the average student owing about $27,000 at
graduation. What’s more, student loan debt cannot be written off in bankruptcy,
except in very rare circumstances. A lot of that debt has been taken on because
government is no longer willing to support higher education to the extent it
once was or should be. After all, an educated citizenry is one of the primary
goals of society, so it makes no sense to punish people who seek a higher
education who don’t happen to have rich parents. Anytime anyone who could
benefit from higher education is denied the opportunity, the whole society
loses.
In some European countries,
students who qualify for public universities not only do not pay tuition but
also receive a stipend to allow them to concentrate on their studies. I
graduated from City College (now University) of New York, while working 30
hours a week and single parenting. It was very tough, but it would have been
impossible if I’d had to pay tuition. At the time, back in the sixties, tuition
was free, I only had to pay a small student fee and buy textbooks. Today there
are no (that I know of) free public institutions of higher learning in America,
and many of them are not just charging tuition but charging a lot.
Charging high tuition at public
colleges and gouging of student borrowers is part of the trend in the last 30
years of the 1% not being willing to pay their fair share of the cost of a
healthy and educated society. Personal responsibility, they scream, while they
pad their own deep pockets with tax breaks and corporate welfare. They bankrupt
their banks by making casino bets with the people’s money, knowing Joe Schmo,
the US taxpayer, will bail them out, while they rail against the 47% who only
want government handouts for inconsequential things like food, health care, shelter,
education. Congress wants to cut back on the food stamp program, literally
taking food out of the mouths of children, to save a few billion dollars, while
refusing to consider a very small stock transaction tax - 0.5% - that would yield
$350 billion a year.
One Repug congressman working hard
to cut slothful unworthy takers off of food stamps, is himself a very big
benefactor of farmer’s welfare programs, the biggest receiver of farm aid in
his state. But, of course, that’s somehow different.
In fact, the Repugs only control
the House of Representatives by a wide margin because of efficient
gerrymandering, since Dumbo candidates for the house received more votes in
total than the Repugs. That disconnect doesn’t happen only in the US: in the
recent Malaysian election the ruling party won 60% of the seats even though the
opposition won the popular vote. Democracy is sloppy, but that’s unfortunately
all we have to work with.
Meanwhile there are individuals
like Elizabeth Warren who rise up to make great changes in spite of the
built-in disadvantages of the political systems they are forced to work with.
