Thank Dick Durbin for sticking it to the big banks on interchange fees.

[Radical Activist]

The big banks are angry about smaller, regional banks being exempt from this rule. Big banks may be forced to take profit losses and/or charge customers extra fees that smaller banks and credit unions won't have to do deal with. The obvious result will be that customers have one more reason to abandon the "too big to fail" banks.

It looks like the talking point around here today is to repeat how worthless the financial reform bill was. I don't think major bankers are agreeing that Obama is their good buddy right now.

http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/thestreet-black-friday-banks-bank-stocks/11/26/2010/id/31377

Banks are Black Friday's Biggest Losers

This is a bittersweet Black Friday for the banking industry.

While retailers flex their competitive muscle and customers race for bargains today, today is the last Black Friday that banks are able to make a killing on interchange fees. Next year, major debit-card issuers will be watching millions of dollars in lost revenue slide by, into the pockets of merchants.

Banks can thank Senator Richard Durbin (D, Illinois) for making this big American shopping holiday rather dreary.

The legislator is responsible for sticking one of the most costly provisions of financial-reform into the final bill. The so-called Durbin amendment tasks the Federal Reserve with limiting interchange fees for debit-card transactions to a level that's "reasonable and proportional" to their costs.

[47of74]

1. Ha ha big banks

[leftstreet]

2. The banks should have been nationalized n/t

[BrklynLiberal]

4. You know what. I think you are correct!!!!

Obama should have taken alot more of FDR's ideas and tried implementing them as soon as he was sworn in...

[Radical Activist]

5. You want Sarah Palin to be in charge of your bank?

Or whoever the next Republican President is? You want Speaker Boehner to have a say in how your bank operates? That's fucking nuts.

[leftstreet]

6. Are you saying Obama's in charge of the banks?

um....nationalizing means we the people would be in charge, not a unitary executive


LOL you don't usually knee-jerk with the "You just wanted Palin" thing

Tired today?

[Radical Activist]

10. Obama is not in charge of the banks because he did not nationalize them.

It's cute to think that "we the people" would be in charge of a nationalized bank. How would that work exactly? Would it be something like the way "we the people" were in charge of our foreign policy when Bush invaded Iraq? Do you really think our current elected officials truly represent we the people?

Before you give that much power to the federal government you have to think about what future administrations will do with it. Nationalizing banks in a non-socialist country like the US, which is likely to have right-wing Presidents again someday, is a very, very risky gamble.

[leftstreet]

13. We should probably privatize Social Security and Medicare then

"Before you give that much power to the federal government"

:eyes:


We are the govt

[Radical Activist]

14. Then we are torture.

We are the Iraq War.
We are the lack of regulation over corporate abuse.
That's what we're doing through out government. Just imagine how much damage corporatist Republicans could do if they take power and own the nationalized banks. What a disaster it could be.

There are occasions when government really is a tool of the people. But most of the time it's only a theory.

Smaller, member owned credit unions, where customers vote on the board of directors, are a much better model than a nationalized Bank of Big Brother. It gives people more direct democratic control than a huge nationalized bank. The financial reform bill provides a number of advantages to smaller banks. It's moving us in the right direction.

[leftstreet]

15. ah, that's probably the theory behind for profit healthcare

Smaller, member owned credit unions, where customers vote on the board of directors, are a much better model than a nationalized Bank of Big Brother. It gives people more direct democratic control than a huge nationalized bank. The financial reform bill provides a number of advantages to smaller banks. It's moving us in the right direction.

Insurance corporations are ultimately more controllable than a single payer evil government system like Medicare. My God! imagine how much damage Republicans could have done to Medicare had they gotten the majority.

:crazy: :crazy: :crazy:

[Radical Activist]

16. No, it's a completely unrelated theory.

Your completely irrelevant comparison merely highlights your failure to respond.
I guess you're perfectly happy with the changes Bush made to medicare, and are happy to trust any similar shenanigans future Republican Presidents would pull with a nationalized bank.

[Tippy]

9. Palen ...could be put in charge of passing out toilet paper

and she would make a shitty mess of that.

[PBS Poll-435]

8. Wikileaks should have been nationalized n/t

[BrklynLiberal]

3. Thanks Sen Durbin for being one of the few with a spine and a real pair...

[Radical Activist]

17. He's still the only surviving Democrat

who voted against the war in Iraq when he was up for re-election.

[Tippy]

7. K&R for my hero Dick Durbin.......

[Radical Activist]

12. He's one of the best leaders the party has.

Probably one of the best we've had in a long time.

[laughingliberal]

11. I was all set to rec this until it turned into bashing people who thought the fin ref bill should...

have gone further. There's some good in the bill but it should have gone further, much further, and those who say so don't deserve derision.

Unrec for all or nothing, black and white messaging

[Radical Activist]

18. If Durbin were majority leader.

Both top Congressional leaders would have porn star names. Just wanted to point that out.