Political notes from Free Press staff writers Terri Hallenbeck, Sam Hemingway and Nancy Remsen
3.03.2009
Bernie battles Bernanke
Sen. Bernie Sanders got into it pretty good this morning when Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke appeared before the Senate Budget Committee, of which Sanders is a member. Have a looksie, below.
Sanders was hot because Bernanke was shrugging off his efforts to find out which financial institutions have gotten the $2.2 trillion in loans from the Fed, and under what terms was the money loaned. Bernanke said he wouldn't do it because if he did it would "destroy the value of the program and they will not come forward..."
At that point Sanders said sarcastically, "Isn't that too bad," that "large, greedy, reckless financial institutions" aren't being held accountable to the public who is bailing them out. Bernanke showed he could give as good as he got from Sanders, so you decide who won this round.
But, clearly, Ben and Bernie won't be on each other's Christmas card lists, as if they ever were.
Strike down S-26, S-58......... (a perversion of VSA 21 Sec 343) legal payment of wages in Vermont.
Why are Vermont legislators inviting predatory devises in the form of payroll debit cards into your lives and your ability to take home 100% of your legally earned pay?
Corporate scams engendered in Pay Cards have entered Vermont’s borders to prey upon Vermonters’ paychecks.
Who will protect children that will also receive payroll cards ------- this is legislative maddness! As easy as taking candy from a baby ----- nice going Economic Development Committee of the Vermont Legislature.
Pay Cards have been traditionally rejected by Vermont with good reason. Pay Cards are passed off as benign instruments of convenience, but are fraught with fees having a design like a leach that sucks away at the net earnings of poor people. The masquerade of convenience is a rouse for their underlying purpose of making a middle man profit and shifting the cost of bookkeeping from the business to be laid on the backs of wage earners.
New employees anywhere are in a very vulnerable state when first entering a new job and should not have to contend with predatory scams as Pay Card fees reducing their net take home pay or be misinformed by unscrupulous store managers wanting to please corporate scammers raising the specter that direct deposit or pay checks will delay their needed wages by weeks and months.
Businesses foist these Pay Cards onto unwitting vulnerable new employees who need an honest pay check or direct deposit without being tricked into having their hard earned wages pilfered by predatory scams of convenience falsely claimed by Pay Cards.
Pay cards in Vermont What???!!!!!.
No instrument of wage payment should be designed or allowed to charge one penny in connection with, or diminish in any way through any scheme, an employee’s right to receive 100% of their lawfully earned wages.
