Credit card companies and their supporters in Congress and the White House are evil

Of course, what do the American people expect when they elect so many Republicans?

For background, read Credit Card Penalties, Fees Bury Debtors/ Senate Nears Action On Bankruptcy Curbs by Kathleen Day and Caroline E. Mayer in the March 6, 2005 Washington Post (registration required)

The Senate is to vote as soon as this week on a bill that would make it harder for individuals to wipe out debt through bankruptcy. The Senate last week voted down several amendments intended to curb excessive fees and other practices that critics of the industry say are abusive. House leaders say they will act soon after that, and President Bush has said he supports the bill.

Bankruptcy experts say that too often, by the time an individual has filed for bankruptcy or is hauled into court by creditors, he or she has repaid an amount equal to their original credit card debt plus double-digit interest, but still owes hundreds or thousands of dollars because of penalties.

I guess 'usury' is no longer against the law.

But if you are wealthy, you can use 'asset protection trusts' to keep from paying creditors while filing for bankruptcy: Proposed Law on Bankruptcy Has Loophole by Gretchen Morgenson in the NYT (registration required)

The loophole involves the use of so-called asset protection trusts. For years, wealthy people looking to keep their money out of the reach of domestic creditors have set up these trusts offshore. But since 1997, lawmakers in five states - Alaska, Delaware, Nevada, Rhode Island and Utah - have passed legislation exempting assets held domestically in such trusts from the federal bankruptcy code. People who want to establish trusts do not have to reside the five states; they need only set their trust up through an institution in one of them.

[snip]

Money held in asset protection trusts can elude creditors because federal bankruptcy law exempts assets governed by "applicable nonbankruptcy law." Intended to preserve rights to property under state law, the exemption makes it difficult for creditors to get hold of assets that they would not be able to seize through a nonbankruptcy proceeding in state court.

More: The Debt-Peonage Society by Paul Krugman.

The bankruptcy bill was written by and for credit card companies, and the industry's political muscle is the reason it seems unstoppable. But the bill also fits into the broader context of what Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at Yale, calls "risk privatization": a steady erosion of the protection the government provides against personal misfortune, even as ordinary families face ever-growing economic insecurity.

The bill would make it much harder for families in distress to write off their debts and make a fresh start. Instead, many debtors would find themselves on an endless treadmill of payments.

The credit card companies say this is needed because people have been abusing the bankruptcy law, borrowing irresponsibly and walking away from debts. The facts say otherwise.

A vast majority of personal bankruptcies in the United States are the result of severe misfortune. One recent study found that more than half of bankruptcies are the result of medical emergencies. The rest are overwhelmingly the result either of job loss or of divorce.

As usual with Republicans in control, working people get a lousy deal; the wealthy and corporations get to prosper.

This is a day of new beginnings,
time to remember and move on,
time to believe what love is bringing,
laying to rest the pain that's gone.

For by the life and death of Jesus,
God's mighty Spirit, now as then,
can make for us a world of difference,
as faith and hope are born again.

--Brian Wren
This is a day of new beginnings, 1978, alt.
(1st 2 verses)