Elizabeth Warren on Bill Maher
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/05/elizabeth-warren-on-bill-maher.html
Elizabeth Warren is a Harvard professor and the head of the “Congressional Oversight Panel”. This organization is a branch of the greater program known as “Oversight of the Troubled Asset Relief Program”. The Congressional Oversight Panel, and subsequently Elizabeth Warren, is charged with the role of reviewing the state of various markets. This includes monitoring the money given by the government in order to assist in repairing the economy, roughly 350 billion dollars.
During the interview Bill Maher asks Warren “So how’s that going, how are the banks doing?”, and Warren responded by saying, “Theres a little problem with the first 350 Billion dollars”. Warren says the majority of the money was given to banks but seems unsure as to the whereabouts of the remainder of that money.
The reassuring detail is that this panel of people will truthfully report back to Congress and does not seem to be tied down to a branch of government that will alter its opinion or cause it to give biased feedback to the American people; they merely report what they observe.
The two also talk about credit cards, and usury – meaning “the charging of interest on loans”. Every separate U.S. state determines how much interest is acceptable to charge before it is considered usurious/unlawful. Warren states that she feels this extends further than just credit cards, and delves into the realm of mortgages and the entire lending industry.
Instead of the once accepted model of borrowing money and having a reasonable amount of time to pay it back with a justified amount of interest, the lending industry has switched to trapping and tricking people into owing them an unreasonable amount of money that they will not possibly be able to pay back. This is a very real issue that is only hurting our economy, and anyone that has ever dealt with the dark side of fine print knows this to be true.
