Home > Democratic Senators Cave on Bankruptcy Bill

Democratic Senators Cave on Bankruptcy Bill

by Open-Publishing - Monday 14 March 2005
2 comments

Conso-Adv Economy-budget Elections-Elected USA

by Matthew Rothschild

On March 11, the U.S. Senate passed the bankruptcy bill that will fill the coffers of the credit card companies while bleeding consumers dry.

The bill passed by a whopping 74 to 25 margin, with eighteen Democratic Senators going over to the dark side.

Here are the spineless 18:

Max Baucus, Montana.

Evan Bayh, Indiana.

Joe Biden, Delaware.

Jeff Bingaman, New Mexico.

Robert Byrd, West Virginia.

Thomas Carper, Delaware.

Kent Conrad, North Dakota.

Daniel Inouye, Hawaii.

Tim Johnson, South Dakota.

Herb Kohl, Wisconsin.

Mary Landrieu, Louisiana.

Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas

Bill Nelson, Florida.

Ben Nelson, Nebraska.

Mark Pryor, Arkansas.

Harry Reid, Nevada, Senate Minority Leader!

Ken Salazar, Colorado.

Debbie Stabenow, Michigan.

"This is not where we as Democrats ought to be, for crying out loud," as Senator Tom Harkin noted. "We are making a terrible mistake by thinking that we can have it both ways. We have to remember where our base is."

The bill is a fantasy come true for credit card companies, which have been pushing it for years. But it’s not as though they’re suffering. They made $30 billion in profits last year.

The bill severely limits the ability of consumers to wipe away some of their debts and get a fresh start.

Half the people who file for bankruptcy do so because of sky-high medical bills, and another 40 percent due so because of disability, job loss, family death, or divorce, according to the National Consumer Law Center. If you make more than the median income in your state, no matter how high your bills are, you can’t wipe the debts clean.

As a result, debtors will be at much greater risk of losing their cars or their homes.

And even if your debts are the consequence of identity theft, of someone stealing your credit card and running up charges, you still are on the hook for them, as the Senate amazingly voted down an amendment to shelter victims of identity theft.

Yet at the same time, the bill assigns guilt to consumers who are doing perfectly understandable and legal things. "The bill presumes that a struggling family that spends more than $42 a week on credit card purchases before declaring bankruptcy is guilty of fraud," according to the Consumer Federation of America.

The bill also requires anyone filing for bankruptcy to get credit counseling beforehand. But as Senator Russ Feingold pointed out, there are some people who need to file for bankruptcy who can’t get that counseling. He mentioned a person with Alzheimer’s, for instance. "Do we think anything is to be gained by requiring a debtor who is ill with a terrible, incurable disease, not even competent to sign legal papers anymore, to take a credit education course?"

He also mentioned U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. Some of them are going broke because their military pay is much less than they were earning at home. On the Senate floor, Feingold again asked: "Do we want to require a soldier to sit down at a computer and take a credit counseling or credit education course while they are in Iraq in order to protect his or her family back home from financial ruin?"

Meanwhile, the new bill won’t do anything to force the credit card companies to stop their predatory lending, nor will it even make them come clean on how much interest or penalties they are charging to consumers who pay only the minimum balance or who pay late.

Middle class debtors are the ones who are going to suffer the most under this bill.

The poor will still be able to get Chapter 7 protection, which releases them from most of their debts. And the indebted rich can still shelter their property if they get a good lawyer to draw up an asset protection trust in states where that’s allowed. And many affluent debtors could still declare bankruptcy and still keep their mansions. On top of that, corporations like Enron could still file bankruptcy to avoid paying their employees.

But if you’re struggling to keep your head above water, this bill has one piece of advice for you: drown.

And eighteen Democratic Senators refused to throw you a rope.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ed...

Forum posts

  • This was a setup for the coming economic collapse.

    How will the credit card companies get their money when you can’t pay because bush crippled the economy. Easy, would you rather work at mcdonalds or go to jail?

    So you see, the economic hit men need laws to come after you. The fascists did the same thing. Make it legal to torture and it’s ok. Make it legal to arrest you without cause and it’s ok. Make it illegal for you not to pay your debt and go to jail.(you’ll run out and flip burgers as fast as you can).

    If you don’t, that’s ok too, because that’s the other part of the plan. The prison industrial complex. Take a look for yourself, our prison population has exploded and a good portion of the prison population is filled with non-violent drug offenders.

    Isn’t social engineering great? Check this out...

    Silent weapons for quiet wars:

    Operations Research Technical Manual
    TW-SW7905.1

    SUMMARY

    Economics is only a social extension of a natural energy system. It, also, has its three passive components. Because of the distribution of wealth and the lack of communication and consequent lack of data, this field has been the last energy field for which knowledge of these three passive components have been developed.

    Since energy is the key to all activity on the face of the earth, it follows that in order to attain a monopoly of energy, raw materials, goods, and services and to establish a world system of slave labor, it is necessary to have a first strike capability in the filed of economics. In order to maintain our position, it is necessary that we have absolute first knowledge of the science of control over all economic factors and the first experience at engineering the world economy.

    In order to achieve such sovereignty, we must at least achieve this one end: that the public will not make either the logical or mathematical connection between economics and the other energy sciences or learn to apply such knowledge.

    This is becoming increasingly difficult to control because more and more businesses are making demands upon their computer programers to create and apply mathematical models for the management of those businesses.

    It is only a matter of time before the new breed of private programer/economists will catch on to the far reaching implications of the work begun at Harvard in 1948. The speed with which they can communicate their warning to the public will largely depend upon how effective we have been at controlling the media, subverting education, and keeping the public distracted with matters of no real importance.

    INTRODUCTION TO ECONOMIC AMPLIFIERS

    Economic amplifiers are the active components of economic engineering. The basic characteristic of any amplifier (mechanical, electrical, or economic) is that it receives an input control signal and delivers energy from an independent energy source to a specified output terminal in a predictable relationship to that input control signal.

    The simplest form of economic amplifier is a device called advertising.

    If a person is spoken to by a T.V. advertiser as if he were a twelve year old, then, due to suggestibility, he will, with certain probability, respond or react to that suggestion with the uncritical response of a twelve year old and will reach into his economic reservoir and deliver its energy to buy that product on impulse when he passes it in the store.

    An economic amplifier may have several inputs and outputs. Its response might be instantaneous or delayed. Its circuit symbol might be a rotary switch if its options are exclusive, qualitative, go' orno go’, or it might have its parametric input/output relationship to an input control signal. For this reason, it is called an active circuit element or component.

    Whatever its form might be, its purpose is to govern the flow of energy from a source to an output sink in direct relationship to an input control signal. For this reason, it is called an active circuit, element or component.

    Economic amplifiers fall into classes called strategies, and, in comparison with electronic amplifiers, the specific internal functions of an economic amplifier are called logistical instead of electrical.

    Therefore, economic amplifiers not only deliver power gain, but also, in effect, are used to cause changes in the economic circuitry.

    In the design of an economic amplifier we must have some idea of at least five functions, which are (1) the available input signals, (2) the desired output control objectives, (3) the strategic objective, (4) the available economic power sources (5) the logistical options.

    The process of defining and evaluating these factors and incorporating the economic amplifier into an economic system has been popularly called game theory.

    The design of an economic amplifier begins with a specification of the power level of the output, which can range from personal to national. The second condition is accuracy of response, i.e., how accurately the output action is a function of the input commands. High gain combined with strong feedback helps to deliver the required precision. Most of the error will be in the input data signal. Personal input data tends to be specific, while national input data tends to be statistical.
    SHORT LIST OF INPUTS

    Questions to be answered: (1) what (2) when (3) where (4) how (5) why (6) who

    General sources of information: (1) telephone tape (2) surveillance (3) analysis of garbage (4) behavior of children in school

    Standard of living by: (1) food (2) clothing (3) shelter (4) transportation

    Social contacts: (1) telephone - itemized record of calls (2) family - marriage certificates, birth certificates, etc. (3) friends, associates, etc. (4) memberships in organizations (5) political affiliation
    THE PERSONAL PAPER TRAIL

    Personal buying habits, i.e. Personal consumer preferences: (1) checking accounts (2) credit card purchases (3) tagged' credit card purchases - the credit card purchase of products bearing the U.P.C. (Universal Product Code) Assets: (1) checking accounts (2) savings accounts (3) real estate (4) business (5) automobile, etc. (6) safety deposit at bank (7) stock market Liabilities: (1) creditors (2) enemies (see - legal) (3) loans (4) consumer credit Government sources (ploys)*: (1) welfare (2) Social Security (3) U.S.D.A. surplus food (4) doles (5) grants (6) subsidies Government sources (via intimidation): (1) Internal Revenue Service (2) OSHA (3) Census (4) etc. * Principle of this ploy -- the citizen will almost always make the collection of information easy if he can operate on thefree sandwich principle’ of eat now, and pay later'. Other Government sources -- surveillance of the U.S. Mail. HABIT PATTERNS -- PROGRAMING Strengths and weaknesses: (1) activities (sports, hobbies, etc.) (2) seelegal’ (fear, anger, etc. - crime record) (3) hospital records (drug sensitivities, reaction to pain, etc.) (4) psychiatric records (fears, angers, disgusts, adaptability, reactions to stimuli, violence, suggestibility to hypnosis, pain, pleasure, love, and sex)

    Methods of coping — of adaptability — behavior: (1) consumption of alcohol (2) consumption of drugs (3) entertainment (4) religious factors influencing behavior (5) other methods of escaping from reality

    Payment modus operandi (MO) — Pay on time, etc.: (1) payment of telephone bills (2) energy purchases (electric, gas,....) (3) water purchases (4) payment of loans (5) house payments (6) automobile payments (7) payments on credit cards

    Political sensitivity: (1) beliefs (2) contracts (3) position (4) strengths/weaknesses (5) projects/activities

    Legal inputs - behavior control (excuses for investigation, search, arrest, or employment of force to modify behavior.) (1) court records (2) police records - NCIC (3) driving record (4) reports made to police (5) insurance information (6) anti-establishment acquintenances
    NATIONAL INPUT INFORMATION

    Business sources (via I.R.S., etc..): (1) prices of commodities (2) sales (3) investments in (a)banks/inventory (b)production tools and machinery (c) buildings and improvements (d) the stock market

    Banks and credit bureaus: (1) credit information (2) payment information

    Miscellaneous sources: (1) polls (2) publications (3) telephone records (4) energy and utility purchases
    SHORT LIST OF OUTPUTS

    Outputs - create controlled situations. --- manipulation of the economy, hence society. --- control by control of compensation and income. Sequence: (1) allocates opportunities. (2) destroys opportunities. (3) controls the economic environment. (4) controls the availability of raw materials. (5) controls capital. (6) controls bank notes (7) controls the inflation of the currency. (8) controls the possession of property. (9) controls industrial capacity (10) controls manufacturing (11) controls the availability of goods (commodities). (12) controls the price of commodities (13) controls services, the labor force, etc.. (14) controls payments to government officials (15) controls the legal functions (16) controls the personal data files - uncorrectable by the party slandered (17) controls advertising (18) controls media content (19) controls material available for T.V. viewing (20) disengages attention from real issues (21) engages emotions (22) creates disorder, chaos, and insanity (23) controls design of more probing tax forms (24) controls surveillance (25) controls the storage of information (26) develops psychological analysis and profiles of individuals (27) controls legal functions (repeat of 15) (28) controls sociological factors (29) controls health options (30) prays on weaknesses (31) cripples strengths (32) leaches wealth and substance

    TABLE OF STRATEGIES

     
    Do this:                        To get this: 
     
    Keep the public ignorant        Less public organization 
     
    Maintain access to control      Required reaction to outputs (prices, 
    points for feedback             sales) 
     
    Create preoccupation            Lower defenses 
     
    Attack the family unit          Control of the education of the young 
     
    Give less cash and more         More self-indulgence and more data 
    credit and doles 
     
    Attack the privacy              Destroy faith in this sort of 
    of the church                   government 
     
    Social conformity               Computer programming simplicity 
     
    Minimize the tax protest        Maximum economic data, minimum  
                                    enforcement problems 
     
    Stabilize the consent           Simplicity coefficients 
     
    Tighten control of variables    Simpler computer input data --  
                                    greater predictability 
     
    Establish boundary              Problem simplicity / solutions of 
    conditions                      differential and difference equations 
     
    Proper timing                   Less data shift and blurring 
     
    Maximize control                Minimum resistance to control 
     
    Collapse of currency            Destroy the faith of the American  
                                    people in each other. 
    

    http://www.thisistherealtruth.net/knowledge/silentweapons.htm

    http://land.netonecom.net/tlp/ref/sw4qw/index.shtml (diagrams)

  • This is the total vote. Besides Salizar, Lieberman is also on the list. I believe that the Democratic Party has insurgents of its own. I hope that the American people wake up by 2006. I want my country back.

     http://www.senate.gov/legislative/L...

    Bush needs a Democratic majority in congress. That is the only way to keep him in check. N

    The best thing for people to do is to NOT take advantage of credit card offers! Pay cash or don’t buy!

    Search Dave Ramsey on the web. He’s a bible-thumping right winger, but his ideas about zero tolerance for credit other than a mortgage are awesome, yes awesome. He also thinks this bill is horrendous. It hurts the consumer, yet does nothing to these "lending institutions" that charge outrageous fees and interest rates. They give credit to people they know can not afford it. If they could, they’d get conventional loans. Mean people suck. They prey on the weak.