An Open Letter to Wall Street: Your New Bailout Plan Has Arrived

Tiberius has graciously permitted me to reprint this “open letter to Wall Street” announcing the details of the new proposal for bailing the financial giants out of the mess they created. The letter was originally posted at Democratic Underground:
“[N]ow that we’re in the role of lender, and you’re in the role of borrower, we’re sure [...]

Bailout Deal Reached; No Help For Foreclosure Victims

UPDATE: From The Huffington Post comes this article by Dean Baker: Why Bail? - arguing there is no good reason to bail out Wall Street and several good reasons not to lift a finger.
In the immortal words of Little Richard: Good Golly, Miss Molly.  What the bejeebers is going on with this economy?!
Well, we pick [...]

Is Bankruptcy Reform On Its Way Out?

Maybe, if we don’t act now.
News isn’t encouraging this morning. After Senator Obama sold us out changed his mind and stated his belief that the mortgage reform angle was “probably something we shouldn’t try to do in this piece of legislation” predictably the rest of the party followed suit and declared the issue a “nonstarter.” [...]

More on Bailout + Bankruptcy Reform

The National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys* has joined the growing chorus of voices demanding that Congress not give in to rampant bullying pressure to act hastily in passing bailout legislation (something I wrote about on this blog right here). As I did in that post, they’ve suggested some language for others (specifically, bankruptcy attorneys) [...]

Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights (HR 5244) Passes the House!

Now it’s on to the Senate, which will vote to enact this much needed legislation to ramp up consumer protection against predatory practices such as:

Increasing credit account interest rates for cardholders based on information in their credit reports from other accounts
Double-cycle billing
Unrestricted imposition of overlimit fees
And more.

To read the full text of the bill, [...]

Barack Obama Talks Bankruptcy Changes

From AP:
Obama’s new bankruptcy proposals supplement his broader — and previously announced — bankruptcy reform agenda that includes changes intended to help people in financial distress because of medical bills and allow homeowners going through the bankruptcy process to renegotiates terms of their mortgages.
The Democrat said he also would help service members and military families [...]