Biden to oversee efforts aimed at middle class

[livvy]

I ran into this while wandering around Stars and Stripes this morning doing my new assignment. (UnhappyCamper asked me to post in the Veterans forum on the weekends to help him out. I can never refuse anything he asks, cuz he is one of the nicest people in the world.)

Don't know if it has been posted out there yet. This must be part of what he's going to talk about this morning on "Stephenopolopolussess's" show.

That's our cupcake...always keeping us in his mind and heart.


Dec 21, 7:28 AM EST


Biden to oversee efforts aimed at middle class

By KEVIN FREKING
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vice President-elect Joe Biden will oversee a task force that will make recommendations on how to build the ranks of the middle class, that ambiguously defined segment of society in which most Americans identify themselves.

Biden said the task force will include other Cabinet members and it will present President-elect Barack Obama with a package of proposals designed to ensure the middle class is "no longer being left behind."

"We'll look at everything from college affordability to after-school programs, the things that affect people's daily lives," Biden said during an interview to be broadcast Sunday on ABC's "This Week".

Overseeing a task force has become tradition for vice presidents. Dick Cheney led a task force on energy. Al Gore had the task of reinventing government. George H.W. Bush, while serving as Ronald Reagan's vice president, oversaw a task force charged with reducing government regulation. While all of those efforts resulted in some accomplishments, it's also clear that the issues they confronted were so large and systemic that many could and did question the progress they made.

Biden said the measure of economic success in an Obama administration would be whether the middle class was growing. He said Obama planned to announce the formation of the task force later Sunday.

more...

http://ap.stripes.com/dynamic/stories/B/BIDEN_MIDDLE_CLASS?SITE=DCSAS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-12-21-07-28-36

[CrispyQ]

1. Joe is an excellent choice for this.

I may write him a letter. We need jobs -- good paying jobs! That's how you build the middle class. Trickle down economics is a pile of bull the wealthy have sold the middle-class, by playing on the middle class dream of making it rich someday. You don't build anything from the top down - why would you build your economy that way? After 30 years, we are coming full circle to the reality of trickle-down, unregulated economics. Finally, people are waking up as more & more start to feel the pain.

[livvy]

2. Common sense, isn't it?

If people don't have jobs, they don't have money to buy things. If people don't buy things, business can't make a profit. So, they lay people off because they don't have the work for them to do, nor the profits to pay them from. Right now we are stuck in this vicious circle. You can prop up the top as much as you want to, but if they don't use the "props" to get the cycle moving again, it doesn't do any good.

I am no economist by even the loosest terms, but common sense says to get things rolling you need to do two things: get some money in the hands of the people to spend immediately, and insist that money bailed out to the corporations/banks be used to get the employment cycle back to a healthier state. Our tax dollar bailout should be strictly monitored to be sure that it is used to benefit the economic cycle as a whole, and that sure isn't happening.

I'm so pissed at CitiBank right now, I could spit. They just got this huge bailout, the Feds lowered the interest rates, and what did CitiBank do...raised the interest rates to all of their customers, in my case 8%, not because I was over my limit or I had been late with a payment...just because they wanted to. I called them and ranted for a good ten minutes. They refused to change their plans, told me my only option was to opt out, effective on the date of my card renewal. So I told them to opt me out, and maybe if I felt like it, I'd pay them back what I owed them, but maybe I'd decide it was in my best interest to to blow them off like they were blowing me off. Grrr... :mad:

[CrispyQ]

3. I feel your pain!!! I am so pissed at my bank right now!

I have an overdraft account. About two weeks ago I made a payment on it, (over $100 frickin' bucks, leaving a balance less than $200) but I wasn't paying attention & selected the "Principle only" payment instead of "Regular", which meant that late last week my account went into arrears because I hadn't paid on my interest, only on my principle, so I no longer had overdraft protection. They paid my debits, but they charged me $35 each & also a $39 late payment fee on my overdraft account. So because I checked "Principle" instead of "Regular," on a balance just over $300, I paid $144 in fees!

:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:
:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:
:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:


My bank didn't get a bail out, in fact it's one of the few that is doing ok. With these kinds of fees, I can see why. I'm trying to decide if it's worth a call to my banker to protest the outrageousness of this. Maybe by Tuesday I could be cool enough to keep from swearing. :grr:

So did you interest rate go up to 8% or did it go up 8% more? I have never had luck talking a credit card company into lower rates. I have however, talked myself out of three moving violations. ;)

[jillan]

4. Some insider information -

If you want to lower your rate on your credit card - call them up and tell them you just received an offer from (name a bank) and they are offering you 6 months with 0% interest, and then a fixed rate of 9.99% (is that lower than what you are paying now??) and you are going to take advantage of it if they don't do something about your rate. If they refuse - flatly ask them if they really want to lose you as a customer.

Remember - it is cheaper for a bank to keep a customer than to go out and get a new one.


Former banker here ;)

[CrispyQ]

5. Thanks!

I'm going to try that on my higher interest account.

When you close a credit card account, can you continue to make payments or do you have to pay off the balance before closing?

[jillan]

6. You have to pay it off first.

When it's at 0 you can close it.

[livvy]

7. It was and has been 11.9% for quite a while.

They were raising it to 19.9% for no reason...just because they could.
I am done with them. I'm usually pretty good at talking them down. They've raised my interest before, and I've always gotten them to lower it. Not this time, so I told them to opt me out. That keeps the rate the same until I pay off the balance, but cancels the card at it's expiration date.


Frickin' vultures, although vultures do what they do to stay alive. These criminals do it because they are greedy and they can.