I thought the reason she did that is in her example, the single mother is in a similar situation: being put on the spot and having to understand what all goes into the APR and not just the interest rate. So if the person in charge of making sure consumers like her are protected from that situation can’t even answer the question herself when put on the spot, then maybe it’s a problem.
I don’t know. This super confrontational and aggressive style I’ve been seeing in all these “WATCH HOW MY LIB PAL STRAIGHT *DUNKED* ON THIS TRUMP NOM!” videos has been making my stomach turn lately. It reminds me of tea party tactics or conservative talk radio punditry more than anything.
Edit: And I’m ever mindful of Dems being asked to be the “adults” in the room while 'pubs run around with their underwear on their heads but this just doesn’t do it for me.
Just like the right wing has MAGAts, the left wing has resistance grifters too.
I think Porter could have probably brought up a better example if the women she is putting on the spot is as clueless as she thinks she is. She just wanted a good gotcha moment. But the woman in that example probably wasn’t in any position to care about the APR.
I love the moment in 4:37 when the calculator gets slid on screen for the Trumpist to use.
The trend now is for online websites or phone apps. If the law states they have to be upfront and present a single number that incorporates all fees (companies will try to invent 10 different fees so that it’s hard for consumers to compare the true cost between providers) like the APR, then it will be easy and fast to make a better financial decision.
“Crap, my car has broken down, should I use Mun4Dayz or FinanceUrLyfAway? One has APR of 450 one has 400, let’s use 400, done.”
The fact that these people usually need money fast is what makes the APR so great, it’s a single number that is easy to compare. They don’t have to do any arithmetic themselves.
Better information is usually just step number 1 towards a better regulated market, and not some utopia. Yet, if it’s all that D politicians can successfully get, good on them.
This is not really a good performance by Cortez.
The did invest in those prisons though, right?
With what prisons?
https://www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/privatized-detention-immigration-federalism/
Maybe it wasn’t Wells Fargo.
She asked in the video if it was Geo Group and CoreCivic, and he said yes. He also said they decided two years ago to end those relationships, said they ended their relationship with one already and the other when the loan agreements essentially ends.
Yeah, so what prisons are we talking about?
The Broward Transitional Center (BTC) is a for-profit detention center located in Pompano Beach, Florida.
might be one. I don’t recall them naming them.
Did Wells Fargo have something to do with running that prison?
I’m getting the impression that Cortez is trying to hold them accountable for lending money to corporations who did bad things… But that’s kind of weird. Especially given that was Fargo actually DID apparently later decide, “these guys are doing bad things, and we don’t want to associate with them.” That seems like… The kind of behavior we want, right?
Wells Fargo is one of the biggest banks in the country. Of course they’re going to be in the business of lending money to businesses they don’t like.
I don’t agree with her line of questioning. I’d rather her talk about breaking up some of these banks than trying to punish them for lending to legal businesses. Or she could go after getting private prisons, or prisons as a profit to begin with…
Yes, because ultimately this is something that the government directly controls. The government can absolutely choose not to use private prisons.
I understand why Cortez tries this… If you somehow held lenders responsible for anything done by people they lend money to, it would absolutely harm those people borrowing money.
But her attack is poorly thought out. The dude from Wells Fargo easily handles her questioning, and she doesn’t seem well prepared for his responses. Some of her suggestions about accounting for liability for lending money to companies who then went on to do stuff that may have contributed to combat change? That was idiotic on its face.
But even beyond that, do we really want Banks to be involved in deciding not only whether we are likely to pay them back, but whether we might do something with that money that the bank doesn’t approve of? Seems like something which could be easily abused, especially if it’s actually encouraged by the government.
I mean they already do this. When I worked for a payment processor owned by a large US bank, we had a firm directive against supporting any businesses with “adult content.” This apparently for very many years included LGBT-specific businesses as an unwritten rule that caused some very awkward and frustrating issues for us. See also large banks being hesitant to work with weed-based businesses in legal states.
I get that that might not be optimal on some level (it really burned me up to see a Disney vacations company lose their credit card processing when someone reported that they serviced a gay clientele and their website was very upfront about that) as banks hold down the disadvantaged and marginalized, but if it’s already a status quo, trying to apply it to, say, child-caging prisons isn’t the worst possible way of operating within existing structures.
Why would that bank be doing that?
I can only imagine that they would have some financial reason… And financially betting against porn seems dumb.
Check out the divestment movement in regards to climate change / the environment, as it is a very similar rationale. The basic argument is that for myriad reasons we have had zero luck even getting democratic governments to be serious about climate change. One of the things regular people can do is to use pressure as a consumer or stockholder for a lender not to lend for fossil fuel projects. Less banks are willing to invest in coal, and then lending costs increases for new projects (if the debt is available at all) and so less of them happen. In Australia, at least, it has actually been pretty effective. It’s not the most economically efficient way to abate emissions, but hey second best optimums.
Oh, I’m fully aware of that. But it’s different from trying to hold a lender accountable for anything done by people they lend to… Even ignoring the essential impossibility of actually figuring how much actual money that would equate to.