Today's post is "What Digby said" WRT to Nancy Pelosi on The Daily Show recently. Just read her, ok?
Her money graph -
And, by the way, one thing she says is undoubtedly true: the Democratic congress will give President Obama a much harder time than they ever gave Bush. No rubber stamps, that's for sure. The only time Democrats ever put up a fight is against their own.
Ever read the tiny print at the end of your credit card agreement? Did you notice the clause that "all disputes with the issuing credit card company had to be settled via mandatory binding arbitration" meaning that you couldn't take the credit card company to court? Did you ever wonder if that might be fair to you, the consumer? Did you think that a private arbitration firmed paid for by the credit card company might rule solely based on the merits of your case? Psst - 1, it's not, 2, they don't, they rule in favor of them what brung 'em as the arbitration companies depend on repeat business which they will only get from the companies, not the consumers. Better yet, the arbitration companies are only accountable to companies & not the public as you, the consumer, signed away your right to sue when you signed up! Slick, 'eh?
Via Credit Slips this AM I stumbled onto to Senate Judiciary Committee testimony from a Professor Elizabeth Bartholet of Harvard Law School on July 23, 2008 about this very issue. It seems Professor Bartholet was for a brief time herself an arbiter for the National Arbitration Forum, her service ending when she dared to rule against a credit card company. Her testimony is here and excerpted from that link are what I think to be two important point she makes:
"My own experience over the past two decades as an arbitrator has led me to conclude that in many instances corporate players are in fact benefitting from a system of purchased justice in both the employment and the consumer credit areas. My experience as an arbitrator for the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) is but one example, although it may be the most telling."
"All this, together with my other experience as an arbitrator, and my reading of the literature, is what has led me to conclude that the Supreme Court’s approval of pre-dispute arbitration has led to a private justice system in which banks and credit card companies are able to purchase the results they want, at the expense of the debtors forced into the system."
At least that's what four of the Supremes, Thomas, Scalia, Roberts & Alito seem to blather on & on about WRT to the criteria they claim to base their decisions on. Funny, though, when you pick and chooose exactly which founder's words to use & when and even funnier, when the words you pick seem to support the decision you wanted to make all along, it seems as if Original Intent is just another code word. Stare decis indeed.
Obviously I read way too much, couple that with too much free time and you've got me wandering through all sorts of treasure troves finding all sorts of things.
Today I stumbled on a fascinating paper by Nathan Newman & J.J. Gass entitled A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM: THE FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF THE 13TH, 14TH, AND 15TH AMENDMENTS (pdf). It's relevant today as the Rehnquist court cited many of the decisions used to restore white supremacy in the 1870's south when his court overturned many civil rights laws starting in the 1990's. Rather than excerpt the paper, here's the introduction & if you're a student of history and interested in history that's been disappeared, you'll follow the link. (are you amazed I found republicans I have good things to say about? But they're not today's version)
"THE FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF THE 13TH, 14TH, AND 15TH AMENDMENTS
The Supreme Court’s recent turn away from civil rights and toward states’ rights claims legitimacy from a familiar – but false – history: the Constitution of 1787 carefully preserved the states’ sovereignty; Congress operated for 150 years within narrow constraints on its enumerated powers; the courts zealously policed the boundaries of proper federal action; and the half-century starting with the New Deal, when the Supreme Court allowed the federal government to do more or less what it wanted, was an anomaly.
None of this is true. If there is an anomalous period in the relationship between the Court and Congress, it began shortly after the Civil War and ended with the “switch in time” of 1937. The Court commenced its first sustained campaign to cut back on congressional power by striking down civil rights statutes passed during Reconstruction. These decisions betrayed Lincoln, who had promised a “new birth of freedom” at Gettysburg, and the people who enacted the constitutional amendments and legislation to make that promise a reality – not to mention the thousands of blacks slaughtered while defending their rights and the millions condemned to live under Jim Crow in the wake of the Court’s rulings.
Whatever else might be said of “originalist” constructions of constitutional provisions adopted in 1787, the Rehnquist Court’s decisions on the New Birth Amendments are utterly indefensible as a matter of history. Like the reactionary Court of the 1870s – whose infamous precedents it unabashedly cites – the states’-rights bloc on today’s Court has struck down federal civil rights legislation enacted pursuant to the New Birth Amendments without regard for the widely understood meaning and purpose of those amendments at the time they were ratified. This paper aims to revive the memory of the New Birth Framers and their work and to debunk the claim that the Court’s anti-equality agenda has any support in the history of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments."
Say you're in the business of making loans. Say you offer me a $500,000 mortgage with a low adjustable interest rate and do not require a down payment. Even better, say you offer me an option ARM note with an adjustable payment that can be low enough to not only not pay back the principal which I borrowed but not even cover the month's interest with a net effect that after paying for a couple of years I'll owe more money than I originally borrowed! (negative amortization) And for the clincher, you're not even going to check my income or my credit history!
Why would you, the loan originator want to do these things? For starters, it's not your money, you'll make your money upfront by large fees & commissions then you'll take my loan along with a number of others and, have one of your 'associates' at one of the rating companies declare it to be 'AAA' rated and sell it to "someone else" as an 'investment security' (at another fat commission, of course).
Uh, oh, bad news, I can't make the payments and the note goes into default & foreclosure, looks like it's time to blame somebody. Is this debacle my fault for being greedy in wanting, say, a nice house and lazy or confused by the sheer complexity of the loan you made me? Or is it your fault for being greedy (remember all those fat fees & commissions?) and irresponsible as you didn't require a down payment or a credit/income verification? Should I get a bailout? Maybe I'm too small to help? Or should the note-holder get a bailout as they're likely too big to fail? These are taxpayer funds that will pay for this bailout, should we then 'privatize the profits' yet 'socialize the risk'?
Numerian at the Agonist has an excellent albeit lengthy post that gives a clear, concise & detailed explanation at the slow-motion collapse of the enormous Ponzi scheme that is our economy these days. If this is something that you find interesting (and no doubt confusing as well) it would be well worth your time to read the post, the comments and the linked articles.
"By the time the scheme collapsed, the averaged household had $115,000 in total debt, was using as much as 40% of disposable income each year to service this debt (and all the fees involved), and had only $392 each year to put away as savings. You can see now how ridiculous it is to call the consumer equally at fault in such a system."
