Update - April 11, 2016. The reason I do not support Bernie Sanders in 2016 is in the seven years since this article was first written I don't think he ever really came up with anything that would actually help consumers reduce their own debt. Instead Mr. Sanders railed against Wall Street when the more viable solution was to help consumers struggling to get out of debt. End of Update.
I have predicted for the last two years that the economy was going to tank, I even wrote two websites over two years ago warning of the theft of money from the american consumer by the Banks and Wall Street. Credit-Card-Cap.com and Credit-Protector.com
Both Websites expose financial methods that loaning institutions have used to rob americans of billions upon billions of dollars.
Tonight (February 3rd, 2009), Rachel Maddow had Bernie Sanders on, a Vermont INDEPENDENT congressman who said something of real substance.
Here is the transcript of a crucial part of the Rachel Maddow, Bernie Sanders interview. I personally transcribed it, please link to it if you like (versus just cutting and pasting it) as it took quite a while to transcribe.
Rachel Maddow
If this executive pay cut can be done well, can be done without loopholes and it works, what's next on the agenda? Do you think in terms of making sure that the bailout money that is already committed, because the bailout money is already outflowing, that it should, can be used in a less exploitive, less immoral way?
Senator Bernie Sanders
Well Rachel, this is the problem with this issue, is, it is so big, that nobody can get their hands on it. It is not just 700 billion dollars, as you know the fed has lent out 2.5 trillion dollars. The president is probably going to ask for more top money.
The fed, we think, is going to lend out trillions more. So what we need to do, among many other things, is we need to figure out a way that we do more than get back to where we were a couple of years ago, by making the institutions stable.
If the taxpayers of this country are putting such a huge amount of money into financial institutions, we need financial institutions that are gonna be beholden to the needs of ordinary americans and not go back to where we were... (as in a couple years ago.)
For example, Just one example. Right now, we're bailing out banks which are charging american taxpayers 25 or 30 percent interest rates on their credit cards. Does that make sense to anybody?
We're giving banks money and they're not telling us how their spending it. We're trying to loosen up credit in america, they're not doing it.
Sanders went on to talk about actually prosecuting the richest people on the planet who may have performed misdeeds that have led to the current situation, and wondered if the justice department was up to the task prosecuting those who are culpable.
Now, I have been advocating an interest free paydown of all credit card debt on my WallStreetChange blog. Bernie Sanders has just said the exact same thing I have been saying about credit card debt. Credit Card Interest charges are suffocating the life support out of the economy and it makes no sense to give the banks more money if they cannot pass the savings on to the consumer in any way.
Barack Obama needs to be funding research and completion of photovoltaic plastics which would do two things at the same time. Photovoltaic plastics lighten the weight of all cargo carriers that travel by ground or water, which instantly improves the efficiency of any battery powered systems because of the lighter weight. Plus, the photovoltaic technology imbedded into the plastic means that the cargo carriers are actually rergenerating part of their own energy even as they travel! Because the carrier's weight has been reduced, whatever is regenerated will power the carrier that much farther.
Let the consumer sweat the smaller stuff. The one trillion dollars in credit card debt is producing 250 billion dollars a year in new interest charges. The republicans want a huge tax cut, the democrats want to give money out, those two ideas merge together if the consumer is given a reasonable way to pay down their own debts via zero percent credit card interest rates to those who desire to pay down their debt.
I have predicted for the last two years that the economy was going to tank, I even wrote two websites over two years ago warning of the theft of money from the american consumer by the Banks and Wall Street. Credit-Card-Cap.com and Credit-Protector.com
Both Websites expose financial methods that loaning institutions have used to rob americans of billions upon billions of dollars.
Tonight (February 3rd, 2009), Rachel Maddow had Bernie Sanders on, a Vermont INDEPENDENT congressman who said something of real substance.
Here is the transcript of a crucial part of the Rachel Maddow, Bernie Sanders interview. I personally transcribed it, please link to it if you like (versus just cutting and pasting it) as it took quite a while to transcribe.
Rachel Maddow
If this executive pay cut can be done well, can be done without loopholes and it works, what's next on the agenda? Do you think in terms of making sure that the bailout money that is already committed, because the bailout money is already outflowing, that it should, can be used in a less exploitive, less immoral way?
Senator Bernie Sanders
Well Rachel, this is the problem with this issue, is, it is so big, that nobody can get their hands on it. It is not just 700 billion dollars, as you know the fed has lent out 2.5 trillion dollars. The president is probably going to ask for more top money.
The fed, we think, is going to lend out trillions more. So what we need to do, among many other things, is we need to figure out a way that we do more than get back to where we were a couple of years ago, by making the institutions stable.
If the taxpayers of this country are putting such a huge amount of money into financial institutions, we need financial institutions that are gonna be beholden to the needs of ordinary americans and not go back to where we were... (as in a couple years ago.)
For example, Just one example. Right now, we're bailing out banks which are charging american taxpayers 25 or 30 percent interest rates on their credit cards. Does that make sense to anybody?
We're giving banks money and they're not telling us how their spending it. We're trying to loosen up credit in america, they're not doing it.
Sanders went on to talk about actually prosecuting the richest people on the planet who may have performed misdeeds that have led to the current situation, and wondered if the justice department was up to the task prosecuting those who are culpable.
Now, I have been advocating an interest free paydown of all credit card debt on my WallStreetChange blog. Bernie Sanders has just said the exact same thing I have been saying about credit card debt. Credit Card Interest charges are suffocating the life support out of the economy and it makes no sense to give the banks more money if they cannot pass the savings on to the consumer in any way.
Barack Obama needs to be funding research and completion of photovoltaic plastics which would do two things at the same time. Photovoltaic plastics lighten the weight of all cargo carriers that travel by ground or water, which instantly improves the efficiency of any battery powered systems because of the lighter weight. Plus, the photovoltaic technology imbedded into the plastic means that the cargo carriers are actually rergenerating part of their own energy even as they travel! Because the carrier's weight has been reduced, whatever is regenerated will power the carrier that much farther.
Let the consumer sweat the smaller stuff. The one trillion dollars in credit card debt is producing 250 billion dollars a year in new interest charges. The republicans want a huge tax cut, the democrats want to give money out, those two ideas merge together if the consumer is given a reasonable way to pay down their own debts via zero percent credit card interest rates to those who desire to pay down their debt.
