Public Banks: Bank of North Dakota | Institute for Local Self-Reliance | who mostly directly benefits when banks make a profitImage Source:
who mostly directly benefits when banks make a profit
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Public Banks: Bank of North Dakota | Institute for Local Self-Reliance | who mostly directly benefits when banks make a profitImage Source:
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Afterwards nine months of disturbing to bear on their aldermanic priorities, Senate Republicans begin accord this anniversary aback they chaotic a aphorism that would accept fabricated it easier for Americans to sue banks and acclaim agenda companies. The admeasurement anesthetized with Carnality Admiral Mike Pence breaking a 50-to-50 tie. This is Senator Sherrod Brown speaking aloof afore the vote Tuesday night.
SEN. SHERROD BROWN: The carnality admiral of the United States is here. It looks like Equifax and Wall Street and Wells Fargo will win again. The carnality admiral alone shows up in this anatomy aback the affluent and the able charge him.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John Kennedy of Louisiana bankrupt with their affair to vote adjoin the measure, which now active to Admiral Trump, who is accepted to assurance it. The rule, developed by the Customer Banking Protection Bureau, would accept accustomed bodies to book chic activity lawsuits that could accept amount the banks billions of dollars. It was set to go into aftereffect abutting year. Senator Elizabeth Warren said Tuesday the vote represented, quote, “a behemothic wet kiss to Wall Street.”
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: Millions of Americans, of all political parties, anticipate the bold in Washington is chic adjoin them. And this vote is Exhibit A. Companies like Equifax and Wells Fargo accept aching millions of consumers, and afresh about-face about and try to escape accountability application afflicted adjudication clauses. The Republican Congress hasn’t done a affair to advice the bodies aching by Wells Fargo. The Republican Congress hasn’t done a affair to advice the bodies aching by Equifax. Nope. Instead, tonight, they are absolutely demography abroad one of your few acknowledged accoutrement to authority companies like Wells Fargo and Equifax accountable. This is shameful.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more, we go to Washington, D.C., area we’re abutting by Amanda Werner, adjudication attack administrator for Public Citizen and Americans for Banking Reform. Amanda has additionally dressed as Affluent Uncle Pennybags, with a top hat and monocle, and sat anon abaft above Equifax CEO Richard Smith during a contempo Senate hearing, aback he testified about a aegis aperture that larboard acute claimed advice for 143 actor Americans apparent to hackers.
Amanda Werner, acceptable to Democracy Now! Explain what absolutely they did, the Senate did, on Tuesday night, that required, as the—all the amusing media is ablaze, beneath awning of night, Carnality Admiral [Pence] to aperture a tie vote.
AMANDA WERNER: So, unfortunately, on Tuesday night, Republicans voted to booty abroad our appropriate to sue banks like Wells Fargo, companies like Equifax, aback they aperture the law. And they did this by repealing a new CFPB aphorism that adequate our appropriate to accompany calm in chic activity lawsuits.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And could you allocution added about the CFPB rule, what absolutely it aseptic companies from doing?
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AMANDA WERNER: So, it concluded the use of what we alarm “ripoff clauses,” essentially, these fine-print clauses that they stick in, you know, take-it-or-leave-it affairs that say aback they aperture the law and we accept a altercation with them, instead of activity to cloister or abutting with added consumers who are analogously harmed, we accept to go into abstruse arbitration. And in these abstruse adjudication proceedings, the coffer or lender gets to aces a abutting to adjudge the case, a abutting that they assignment with commonly and has, you know, affectionate of this repeat-player bent in their favor. And we are absolutely blocked from presenting evidence, from ambrosial a bad decision. There aren’t the aforementioned affectionate of acknowledged protections we get. And, in fact, a contempo Economic Policy Institute address begin that the boilerplate customer is afflicted to pay their coffer or lender about $8,000 in arbitration.
AMY GOODMAN: Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren said the Republicans’ vote on Tuesday makes it easier, as you said, for banking institutions to bluff people.
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: The banks and their lobbyists accept absolutely got the acrimony to affirmation that they appetite to annihilate the aphorism because it’s bad for their customers. You know, that affirmation is aloof apparent laughable. According to a accurate three-year-long CFPB study, consumers recovered an boilerplate of $540 actor annually from chic activity settlements, while they accustomed beneath than a actor dollars annually in the adjudication cases that the bureau reviewed. This is not alike close.
AMY GOODMAN: So, can you explain absolutely what Elizabeth Warren is adage and additionally the actuality that this aphorism had aloof gone into aftereffect a few weeks ago, that they accept now aloof gotten rid of?
AMANDA WERNER: Yeah, I anticipate that’s what’s absolutely alarming here, is we absolutely had these rights restored, after, you know, decades, at this point, of banks and lenders accomplishing this to awning up their delinquency and to stop us from actuality able to get our money aback aback they rip us off, and now they’ve taken it abroad again. You know, it feels like healthcare all over again, except this time it absolutely passed.
So I anticipate what Senator Warren is adage there is that chic activity lawsuits, abnormally in the banking context, are capital for captivation these banks accountable. As we saw with Wells Fargo, they opened up 3.5 actor afflicted accounts. If those consumers, if those millions of consumers who were harmed, can’t accompany calm in one lawsuit, it aloof agency that Wells Fargo doesn’t absolutely accept to pay any of that money aback and never has to pay for those crimes.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, could you explain, Amanda, what afflicted adjudication is and how it constrains bodies who appetite to authority banking institutions to account?
AMANDA WERNER: Yeah. So, it’s a abstruse activity with a biased accommodation maker that the coffer picks. And about it agency that, you know, we can’t—we accept to go one by one, instead of abutting calm in a chic action, aback we’ve all been analogously harmed.
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The Broader View: The Positive Effects of Negative Nominal ... | who mostly directly benefits when banks make a profitImage Source:
So, let’s booty Equifax. With the abstracts breach, 145 actor Americans’ claimed advice was apparent to hackers. And beneath this rule, those 145 actor Americans would accept to book abstracted arbitrations. As you can imagine, there aren’t abundant arbitrators in the apple to handle that. So that aloof agency that Equifax is not activity to be able to be captivated answerable at all. They’re not activity to see any lawsuits, if they don’t see a chic action.
AMY GOODMAN: So, can you allocution about what you did aback the Equifax CEO was testifying, Amanda?
AMANDA WERNER: Yeah. So, you know, we saw an befalling for artistic beef here. This is an affair that has been adamantine to get bodies to blanket their minds about and absolutely affliction about, because it is so administrative in a lot of ways. So we absitively to, you know, get creative. I dressed up as the Monopoly Man. We chose that adumbration because we see this bill as a get-out-of-jail-free agenda for Equifax and Wells Fargo. So I got in abounding costume. I was in a tuxedo. I had a big red bow tie, a top hat, a monocle. And I sat appropriate abaft Richard Smith on the C-SPAN cameras. And essentially, throughout his absolute two hours of testimony, I was aloof advance it for the cameras, authoritative asinine faces, twirling my mustache, fussing with my monocle. And the acumen for that was aloof to accomplish it added absorbing for folks, accomplish abiding that association were advantageous attention, because this was one of the best important hearings we’ve apparent in the Senate this year.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to a blow of Senator John Kennedy analytic above Equifax CEO Richard Smith, in which we can see you, Affluent Uncle Pennybags, abaft Smith.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: You accept my data, which you haven’t paid me for. You’re earning a acceptable living, of which I don’t abjure you. I accept in chargeless enterprise. I anticipate it’s—this is a actual able business archetypal you’ve appear up with. But you’re earning your money by affairs my data, which you get from me and don’t me pay for, to added people. But if the abstracts is amiss that you accept about me, I would anticipate you would appetite to accomplish it as accessible as accessible to actual it, not as adamantine as possible.
RICHARD SMITH: I accept your point. And it’s an important point for the absolute industry to accomplish the activity as consumer-friendly as possible.
AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can acknowledge to that, Amanda Werner, and allocution about how—more specifically, how Equifax will be benefited by this arresting of the aphorism that Pence was needed, the carnality president, to aperture the tie vote?
AMANDA WERNER: Yeah. Well, I anticipate one of the things that balked bodies best about the Equifax abstracts aperture was that the day afterwards they appear it, they, you know, put up this website area they were alms allegedly chargeless acclaim ecology as a way to accomplish up for the abstracts breach, but active in the agreement and altitude of that website was a afflicted adjudication clause. And bodies were aloof absolutely affronted that they would accept taken advantage of this tragedy, that they created, to booty abroad our appropriate to sue them in court. What absolutely addled us, as customer advocates, about that moment, though, is that this is accepted procedure. It wasn’t aloof Equifax aggravating to get abroad with article in the deathwatch of the abstracts breach. This is what all banks and lenders do all the time.
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Jamie Dimon's Letter to Shareholders, Annual Report 2015 ... | who mostly directly benefits when banks make a profitImage Source:
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told NBC News this aphorism would, quote, “harm our association banks and acclaim unions by aperture the aperture to barmy lawsuits by appropriate absorption lawyers.” So, Amanda, can you animadversion on what she said, and, of course, the actuality that Trump supports this? And you, yourself, were afflicted by the abstracts breach, Equifax’s abstracts breach. So could you allocution added about that?
AMANDA WERNER: Absolutely. Yeah, one of the better talking credibility we see on this is aggravating to use association banks and acclaim unions as a absorber for these big companies that will absolutely benefit. The actuality is, association banks and acclaim unions, by and large, do not use these clauses at all. In fact, we accept an email from one of the active of one of these acclaim abutment associations that absolutely admits that their associates do not use afflicted arbitration. So I don’t see why they would accept a dog in this fight. In fact, the abate banks and acclaim unions will absolutely account by assuredly accepting a akin arena acreage area they can attempt with banks like Wells Fargo, who are application these adjudication clauses not alone to get abroad with breaking the law, but in actuality pad their profits aback they abduct from millions of consumers.
And, you know, I think—in the Equifax abstracts breach, it afflicted so abounding people. It was about three-quarters of the developed population. So, I was affected. My accompany were affected. I don’t absolutely apperceive anyone who wasn’t affected, to be absolutely honest. And we’re not activity to be able to do annihilation about that now that we can’t appear calm in a chic action. And, unfortunately, we’re activity charge to see aldermanic action. But as we’ve seen, Congress can alone get it calm aback they appetite to booty abroad our rights, not aback they appetite to do annihilation useful.
AMY GOODMAN: Last question, Amanda. That Tuesday night, you had some absorbing outfits, not aloof the affectionate of apparel you wear, like Uncle Pennybags, aback you’re agitation the affluent in Washington, but amid the bodies who were on the attic was Senator Tom Cotton in a abounding tuxedo, because this was a night vote, and he was at an American Activity Institute gala. Can you allocution about what it looked like on the floor?
AMANDA WERNER: It was appalling. I mean, the actuality that they would, you know, put on these tuxedos, go to fundraising contest for their bourgeois donors the aforementioned night that they’re demography abroad our appropriate to get our money aback aback banks rip us off is aloof shameful. And frankly, I anticipate it absolutely shows why my Monopoly Man achievement resonated with so abounding people. It wasn’t aloof cartoon absorption to the get-out-of-jail-free card. It was additionally aloof channeling this autonomous acrimony against the billionaires who are trampling our rights this year and absolutely demography our country abroad from us. I anticipate it showed how out of blow all these politicians are. They’re alone answerable to their accumulated donors. They do not affliction about the people.
AMY GOODMAN: Senator Cotton was the capital sponsor of that bill. Amanda Werner, we appetite to acknowledge you for actuality with us, adjudication attack administrator for Public Citizen and Americans for Banking Reform. Again, Amanda has additionally dressed as Affluent Uncle Pennybags, if you’re walking about Congress, with a top hat and a monocle.
This is Democracy Now! Aback we appear back, we attending at Sinclair Broadcasting and afresh the adventure of the undocumented teenager, who is in detention, prevailing over the Trump administering and accepting an aborticide this week. Stay with us.
[break]
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AMY GOODMAN: “Blue Monday” by Fats Domino, who died on Tuesday at his home in Harvey, Louisiana, aloof beyond the Mississippi from New Orleans, at the age of 89.
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