Did I shout that loud enough? You should be creeped out and afraid, very very afraid, of a Government Old Age pension (Social Security) and subsidized Medical care (Medicare/Medicaid) without which you’d have deal with Mumsey and Pop Pop rattling around at a cost of Thousands, perhaps Hundreds of them, unless you push ’em out to sea on an ice flow or scheme a Cyanide Cocktail.
It’s a bribe to make us go away and not infect you with our old (let me know how that’s working out for you in 20 – 40 years).
Not much wrong with this idea either-
Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez want to cap credit card interest rates at 15 percent
By Renae Merle, Washington Post
May 9, 2019
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will introduce legislation on Thursday to cap credit card interest rates at 15 percent, a steep reduction from current levels.
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In addition to a 15 percent federal cap on interest rates for credit cards and other consumer loans, states could establish their own lower limits under the legislation. It would also allow the U.S. Postal Service to get into the banking business, including offering savings and checking accounts.The proposal is sure to meet stiff resistance from the banking industry, which brought in $113 billion in interest and fees from credit cards last year, up 35 percent since 2012, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
The 15 percent cap would be the same as the one Congress imposed on credit unions in 1980, Sanders said. (The National Credit Union Administration, the industry’s regulator, raised that cap to 18 percent in 1987 and has repeatedly renewed it at that higher level.)
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The proposal may not get through Congress now but that calculus could change if Democrats gain control of the Senate in 2020, Jaret Seiberg, an analyst with Cowen’s Washington Research Group, said in a research note. “The progressive attack is organized and there are multiple paths for them to achieve victory. It is why we believe this is a risk that is worth monitoring,” he said.Credit card rates have recently reached a record high, according to Creditcards.com, which has been tracking the data since 2007 and compiles data from 100 popular cards. The median interest rate was 21.36 percent last week, compared with 20.24 percent about a year ago and 12.62 percent about a decade ago, according to the website.
Rates have been rising fastest for those with the lowest credit scores, said Ted Rossman, an industry analyst for Creditcards.com. “Issuers are taking an opportunity to charge people with lesser credit a bit more,” he said.
For borrowers with high credit scores, the average rate was 17.73 percent last week, compared with 16.71 percent a year ago. For those with poor credit scores, the average is now about 24.99 percent, compared with 23.77 percent a year ago.
The difference in the increase is about 20 basis points higher for customers with a low credit score. A basis point is a common way to measure changes in percentages.
“It may not sound like that much, but that is just in one year,” Rossman said. And even small increases in rates can be crippling to a cash-strapped borrower, he said. “It is the ultimate slap in the face when you’re already down.”
A quick reminder- this is money they pay 2.5% to rent from the Federal Reserve and the only reason it’s so damn high is the Fed still believes in the feeble magic of Rate Cuts.