Republicans Try To Protect Bankers When Republicans can’t win a national election, they go the judicial route where voters cannot tamper with results. Their latest trick is to get a federal circuit court to rule that presidential “recess appointments” are unconstitutional. The Republicans picked a circuit court with all three judges appointed by George Bush. […]
Tag Archives: Elizabeth Warren
Banks To Be Protected From Consumers
Banks to collect fees before credit cards are used The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is changing its mission. The agency was formed in 2009 to protect consumers from exorbitant—and often hidden—fees. That role posed a problem for those banks that now want to sign up consumers with poor credit card histories. Solution? Change the Consumer […]
OBAMA THROWS WARREN UNDER THE BUS
Financial Services Industry Protected From Consumers Whew! It was a close call. The financial services industry almost got the regulator they feared the most: Elizabeth Warren as Chief of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). She could have been the end of financial services as we know it and are abused by it. She wanted […]
NOCERA ON ELIZABETH WARREN
As Consumer Protection Burns, The President Dithers Why doesn’t the president speak up for Elizabeth Warren? He chose her to design the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau because of her credentials. It was not a political appointment. Financial services lobbyists are apoplectic about the possibility of genuine consumer protection. Warren is their enemy and her destruction […]
SUROWIECKI ON ELIZABETH WARREN
A Must-Read For All Consumers It’s hard to choose which insight to quote from James Surowiecki’s latest The Financial Page piece, “The Warren Court” in The New Yorker. He explains why Elizabeth Warren is at once the most popular and most hated person in Washington. If you do not know of Surowiecki’s bi-weekly single page […]
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Charles Selden: Hope my post was helpful....
Why This Blog?
My name is Charles Selden. I write this blog for consumers who have been abused by corporations. Like you.
Me?…abused?
That’s right. Abuse is not confined to children, spouses, the elderly, or baseball umpires. The most regularly abused person is the American consumer. It has gone on so long that most people accept it as “just the way things are” and are sure nothing can be done about it. You have been abused as a consumer--unless within the last 12 months you have not shopped for food, called a toll-free number for technical assistance, tried to find “your question” in a list of FAQs, bought an appliance or computer, eaten out, booked a flight, watched cable TV, taken a vacation, used a credit card, paid a medical bill, bought an item on the Internet or purchased a cashmere sweater. If all of your purchases and calls for help ended happily, you are either exceptionally lucky or a wee bit delusional. The fact is abuse of consumers is profitable for corporations, although abuse is not a word they would use.
There’s no shame in being a consumer abused by a corporation. The shame is that more consumers do not fight back when abused. That’s where this blog comes in.
I’ve been a consumerist for more than four decades. I look forward to corporate abuses, especially the compensation and fun parts. The corporations do their part and I do mine. This blog chooses a few of the “better” episodes to amuse and instruct consumers. The blog will not urge you to join a movement or contribute to a cause. Indeed, it is absolutely not about trying to change what corporations do to consumers. Why spoil a good thing?
As for my Manifesto, it owes a lot to Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. He used the word abuses to describe what King George and his cohorts were doing: “a long train of abuses…to reduce them under absolute Despotism.” Corporations treat consumers that way.
To see how I fight back, try my blog for a while. Laughter is good for your spirit and getting compensation for abuses is good for your bottom line.
Portraits by Mike Peters
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