Sunday, July 1, 2012

The Nation: You Swipe Card, Banks Swipe Cash by GEORGE ZORNICK

"Earlier this month, we reported on the Senate battle over "swipe fees," which banks charge merchants for processing credit or debit cards. It appeared the story was over, and an effort by banks to maintain high swipe fees was vanquished — but an eleventh-hour action by the Federal Reserve Wednesday has given Wall Street yet another astonishing victory in Washington...."

K Webster (Bowerygals) wrote:
So these "goods and services" are deserving of off-the-charts profits while middle, working and poor people just keep spiraling into debt? Please please don't try to sell that "trickle down" competition-will-solve-all-our-problems-speak!

Predatory capitalism is not enshrined in the US Constitution. It's a flawed economic system that was good at some things and those things are not compensating for where it's running off the rails now. It's not holy and it is not working. You can't continue to get profit off of people who have no income and the earth can't tolerate much more of the rapacious hunt for pristine "markets".

No one gets to be secure under this system. Obviously the very wealthy aren't or they wouldn't keep trying to make money they cannot spend in their or their children's children's lifetimes. Check out the NYTimes article on the 23% pay raise of the top CEO's while entire countries and states are going bankrupt.

This is just getting stupid.