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You have two pages, that's the whole credit card agreement. The terms are clear and flat and easy to see so anyone can read them. So you could lay four credit cards in front of you and say, 'Oh, that's the one that has the highest rate, that's the one that has the really scary provision that could hurt me.'
I was a Republican because I thought that those were the people who best supported markets. I think that is not true anymore. I was a Republican at a time when I felt like there was a problem that the markets were under a lot more strain. It worried me whether or not the government played too activist a role.
I do not understand how it is that financial institutions could think that they could take taxpayer money and then turn around and act like it's business as usual. I don't understand how they can't see that the world has changed in a fundamental way, that it is not business as usual when you take taxpayer dollars.
Wall Street's outsized influence in our nation's capital is something I've talked about for a long time - long before I even thought about running for office. But where I see a problem - an infestation, really - a lot of others in Washington, both Democrats and Republicans, seem to see government working just fine.
In 1978, we adopted a new Bankruptcy Code in the United States, and a principal part of this was designed to adjust to the new corporation, to find ways to let a corporation that had gotten into financial trouble reorganize itself. A big part of the selling point on this bankruptcy law was, 'It will preserve jobs.'
When I first started talking about running for office, a lot of people said to me, 'Don't let the consultants change you,' and I'd always assured them that I wouldn't allow it to happen. But like it or not, I had to change. Not because of a consultant, but because I started to understand the cost of a stupid mistake.
Other countries around the world make employees and retirees first in the priority. For example, in Mexico, the bankruptcy laws say if a company wants to go bankrupt... obligations to employees and retirees will have a first priority. That has an effect on every negotiation that takes place with every company in Mexico.
I get heartfelt thanks from all kinds of people. Today I heard from a waitress in Georgia who has lost her job and is trying to figure out how her local bank can change the terms on her credit card, and I heard from a physicist at a major research university who wants to explain a better theory of financial stress tests.
If the big banks expect to buy influence when they give money to favored think tanks, then the public has a right to know. If the big banks don't expect to buy influence and are merely making charitable contributions, then their shareholders have a right to know. Either way, there's no excuse for keeping these payments secret.
People who graduate are more resilient financially, and they weather economic downturns better than people who don't graduate. And, throughout their lives, people who graduate are more likely to be economically secure, more likely to be healthy, and more likely to live longer. Face it: A college degree puts a lot in your corner.
The financial collapse of 2008 got its start with predatory mortgages, that weren’t sold by community banks and credit unions, they were sold by fly by night mortgage brokers who had almost zero federal oversight and then the big banks looked over, saw the profit potential and they wanted it bad. So they jumped in and sold millions of these terrible mortgages while the bank regulators just looked the other way.