The short list of unregulated fiscal policies currently ignored in Congress includes: bankruptcy laws shredded to force individuals into an unending cycle of debt; balloon mortgage rates with no curbs on abuse; interest rates ranging from 24 percent up to 34 percent or more; bank fees for the smallest infraction, up to $39 per transaction. "Zero percent credit and no interest payments for two years" scams are running amuck. "Default APRs" are stealing from consumers for any reason a lender can make up… and on, and on.
Now we have the "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act." I am outraged that, despite claims to the contrary, it is the high rollers and insiders in the banking, lending and insurance industries that stand to make fortunes from this wholesale bailout. As reported in the New York Times this week, "Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it." Investment firms want all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages. Financial institutions are jockeying to oversee the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees. This fiasco will be a feeding frenzy for everyone in a position of corporate power who wants to "consult" to steer us out of the mess that they created in the first place.
George W. Bush and the majority of Republicans in Congress are largely responsible for eliminating regulations and consumer protection laws that could have prevented this crisis. The lack of federal oversight and regulatory control fueled this cycle of predatory lending and unfair business practices that has benefited the wealthiest Americans with little regard to the damage done to the middle class.
Dean Nimmer
Holyoke
I was astonished to hear Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, blame the Bush administration for the current economic crisis. Pelosi should ask Christopher Dodd (Democrat), chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, and Barney Frank (Democrat), chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services, why they did not foresee the potential problems in the housing mortgage market and banking industry. The Senate Committee provides oversight of "banks, banking and financial institutions; deposit insurance; economic stabilization; federal monetary policy, including the Federal Reserve System; and money and credit." The House Committee provides oversight of the "securities, insurance, banking and housing industries. The Committee also oversees the Federal Reserve, the United States Department of the Treasury, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission." I can only assume the two committees were AWOL and did not do their jobs overseeing the regulation of the financial institutions.
Donald A. Moskowitz
Londonderry, N.H.
