Finance

October 13, 2009 -- Washington, DC -- Today, Congressman Paul Hodes announced his support for legislation that would prevent credit card companies from arbitrarily increasing interest rates. He is a cosponsor of H.R. 3639, the Expedited CARD Reform for Consumers Act of 2009, which would speed up new credit card regulations and put them into effect on December 1, 2009, instead of next year.

Congressman Hodes supported legislation that would prevent interest rate increases and certain contract changes beginning in February of 2010. In response to the passage of this legislation, some credit card issuers have raised interest rates in an effort to skirt the new regulations.    » read more »

October 12, 2009 -- (Orlando, Fla.) – Congressman Alan Grayson, U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan, and Mayor Buddy Dyer toured a neighborhood and highlighted two successful programs helping resolve the problems of foreclosure and slumping property values today in Orlando.

Congressman Grayson said, "A home is not only a roof over your head. It creates jobs for plumbers, carpenters and real estate agents; it's an investment and a savings account; and a paid-off mortgage means security for senior citizens. That's why we are trying to so hard to revive housing in Central Florida."    » read more »

Congressional Letter Already Has Some Credit Card Companies Promising Not to Raise Rates

WASHINGTON, DC - On behalf of 16th Congressional District constituents, U.S. Congressman John Boccieri (D-Alliance) along with eighteen of his House colleagues recently sent a letter to Citigroup Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit requesting major credit card companies, including Citigroup, avoid changing credit card account terms before the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 (Credit CARD Act) takes effect in February 2010.    » read more »

October 13, 2009 -- Washington, D.C. -- Discover Financial Services CEO David Nelms has assured U.S. Representatives Neil Abercrombie (HI), Betsy Markey (CO) and a group of House Members that Discover “will not initiate any change in terms” on credit card accounts to beat a new federal credit card reform law into effect.

Markey, Abercrombie and sixteen other representatives wrote the Chief Executive Officers of JP Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of America, Discover Financial Services, American Express, Capital One Financial Corp. and Citigroup asking them not to change the terms on credit card accounts ahead of federal reform legislation. Discover joins Bank of America in announcing that no change in consumer credit card accounts will be made.    » read more »

10/12/2009 -- To help prevent California homeowners and homebuyers from being negatively impacted by the fraudulent mortgage practices that have arisen in the aftermath of the national foreclosure crisis, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed legislation to increase protections for consumers in the lending market and provide law enforcement with more tools to crack down on deceitful mortgage practices.

These bills aim to strengthen California’s reverse mortgage laws by providing senior homeowners with greater consumer protections when considering reverse mortgage agreements, make it a felony to commit fraud in connection with a mortgage application and promote responsibility and accountability in the real estate market.    » read more »

Begich Co-sponsors Act to Save Taxpayer Funds and Ensure Efficient Spending

October 8, 2009 -- In an effort to end irresponsible and illegal expenditures of taxpayer money by federal employees the U.S. Senate has passed the Government Charge Card Abuse Act S.942, co-sponsored by Senator Mark Begich. A bipartisan piece of legislation passed by unanimous consent, the law will work to increase levels of accountability for federal employees, create new policies to improve transparency, and provide training to federal employees.    » read more »

Credit Card Holders’ Bill of Rights will curtail predatory practices, but Kilroy wants to make sure companies are not taking advantage of the timeframe to adversely affect constituents

October 7, 2009 -- WASHINGTON -- Congresswoman Mary Jo Kilroy today joined 18 House members calling on country’s major credit card companies to not change the terms on consumer credit card accounts ahead of federal credit card reform legislation slated to go into effect early next year.    » read more »

October 6, 2009 -- Washington, DC -- Congressman Paul Hodes issued the following statement after the release of a new report that shows that the Treasury Department misled the public in statements on the TARP program. Special Inspector General Neil M. Barofsky’s report charges that Treasury officials made inaccurate statements regarding the financial health of some of the nation’s biggest banks while they were receiving billions of dollars in aid from taxpayers.

"The details of this report are troubling," said Congressman Hodes. "Treasury officials must be accountable to American taxpayers, especially when taxpayers are being asked to pay for the mistakes and greed of Wall Street. Granite Staters have a right to know exactly how their tax dollars are being spent.    » read more »

10/07/09 -- Washington, D.C. - Wednesday, Representatives Teague, Heinrich and Lujan joined 15 of their colleagues in the House in sending a letter to the country’s major credit card companies, calling on them to pledge to not change the terms on consumer credit card accounts ahead of federal credit card reform legislation slated to go into effect early next year.    » read more »

Calls on companies to provide relief for middle class families

07 October 2009 -- Washington DC - Congressman John Adler, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, sent a letter to the country's major credit card companies, calling on them to pledge to not change the terms on consumer credit card accounts ahead of federal credit card reform legislation slated to go into effect early next year.

The letter came in response to claims that credit card companies are unfairly hiking their interest rates before the Credit CARD Act takes effect.    » read more »

Funding Status of Typical Corporate Plan Tops 80 Percent

BOSTON, October 6, 2009 — U.S. stocks rose for the seventh consecutive month, helping to increase the funded status of the typical U.S. corporate pension plan by 0.6 percentage points in September, according to monthly statistics published by BNY Mellon Asset Management. The funded status of the typical plan increased to 80.3 percent at the end of September, up from 79.7 percent at the end of August, according to the BNY Mellon statistics.    » read more »

October 6, 2009 -- WASHINGTON — Four Members of Congress who played key roles in enactment of the Credit CARD Act, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., sent a letter today to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke urging him to strengthen collection of credit card data to enable policymakers to monitor changing credit card practices and evaluate the impact of the new law. A copy of the letter is attached and available below.

October 6, 2009

The Honorable Ben Bernanke
Chairman
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Twentieth and Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20551

Dear Mr. Chairman:    » read more »

Big Bank “Reforms” Fail to Protect Customers, Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) Needed

October 5, 2009 -- Washington, DC --- Announced changes to overdraft programs at the nation’s largest banks will not protect American consumers from exorbitantly expensive short-term loans or extend federal consumer protections to the most expensive loans banks make.    » read more »

October 1, 2009 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. - Senator Bob Bennett (R-Utah), a member of the Senate Banking Committee, issued the following statement today regarding the passage of the Emergency Stabilization Act, which created the Troubled Asset Relief Program one year ago:

"Today is the anniversary of one of the most difficult votes I've ever had to cast as a senator: the vote to authorize TARP to stabilize the financial system, not only here, but around the world.    » read more »

NEW YORK--Oct. 1, 2009-- In response to continuing confusion regarding the amount of assistance AIG has received from the government and the amount it must repay, AIG provides the following facts:

The U.S. government has provided support to AIG in several forms: direct equity investments in AIG, loans to AIG, the extension to AIG of a mostly untapped equity capital facility, access to a commercial paper funding facility1 and loans to special purpose entities formed by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY). The loans to these special purpose entities are to be repaid by those entities, and not by AIG, from the proceeds of the assets owned by those entities.

The Breakdown:

LOANS TO AIG, INCLUDING INTEREST AND FEES: $38.8 billion    » read more »