Worst Person

The entire banking industry has been spending bailout money to lobby against the interests of the common citizen. They lobbied against bankruptcy Judges being able to renegotiate mortgage terms and conditions using bailout money. They lobbied against credit card regulation reforms using bailout money. This is more of the same.This is what happens when you have rampant corporatism. I don’t know what it will take to get the citizens motivated to demand and end to this. It’s not just the banking industry. It is ALL industry. The pharmaceutical industry and the agriculture industry are probably the worst at his game.

Bob, the history behind citigroup actually makes them far worse than even that article portrays them.Citigroup has crashed/failed about 5 times over the past 100 years just like they are now and has been bailed out every single time.Its almost like it is designed to crash and be bailed out.

Silly Ratfaced Git-”The entire banking industry has been spending bailout money to lobby against the interests of the common citizen”Nowhere in the article does it say that Citigroup is spending bailout money on the lobbying effort. It simply says they have received bailout money. (I was taught a lesson from someone in PTT thread about the Police Funds article about “facts”; do you mean it? ) Bailout money can be kept separate. And further, if they actually are using bailout money, how inept is the Government that they would allow this to occur?The assumption is your point of view that the government does act in the common citizens best interests, and that Citibank does not. Therefore, Citibank’s lobbying is “bad”. So lets see how the government helped the common citizen from the links provided in this article.”Under the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, privately funded student loans are treated the same way that loans funded and guaranteed by the federal government or nonprofit institutions. Prior to the new law, if you had a loan from a private-sector lender that was not guaranteed, it could be discharged under chapter 7. The new law gives these loans the same protection as the guaranteed loans.”So the Government stepped in and said that no matter what you dire situation is, (some exceptions) you have to pay the loans back, no more discharge in bankruptcy. Does that help the common citizen??What else did the Government do for the common citizen?”The Higher Education Technical Amendments of 1991 (HEA) eliminated all statutes of limitations for any collection action by a school, guaranty agency, or the United States under a federal loan program. The amendments also eliminated all limitation periods for tax intercepts, wage garnishments, and other collection efforts.If you’re not able to discharge your student loans in bankruptcy or establish a repayment plan in a Chapter 13 proceeding, the federal Department of Education has the right to:Tack collection fees of 25% and collection agency “commission” fees of approximately 28% onto the principal, interest and penalties you already oweTake your federal income tax refund until all your defaulted student loans have been paidGarnish up to 15 percent of your wages, without suing you firstTake as much as $750 per month (up to 15 percent of your income) in federal benefits to which you might be entitled, including social security retirement and social security disability income, and apply that amount toward your outstanding defaulted student loan debtSue you for your outstanding student loan debt and place liens on your property”This is looking out for the common citizen who needs help? From my vantage point it looks like the government made it much, much harder on those folks who needed help. Companies have historically been fine with writing off bad debt through bankruptcy, why is the government so incredibly harsh on the most financilly vunerable?