Living In A Bubble

The state legislature of Ohio has actually done something notably good, for once. Even more remarkable, they accomplished this feat on a bipartisan bais, passing by a significant margin a bill that will outlaw preatory lending practices. This seems to be targeted mostly at home mortgage lenders, but it would seem as though the implications of the bill might well be much broader than this. Governor Bob Taft has assurred the legislature he will probably sign the bill into law after an obligatory review process.

This is really a first. In fact, the total number of votes against the bill in the Ohio State Senate were three. Industry arguments and oppossition to the bill were weak, and amounted to warnings that some couples with bad credit histories might be adversely affected (though I would submit not as adversely affected were they to take out a mortgage with one of these sharks had the bill not been signed).

I hope this is the opening salvo in what will become a nationwide trend, one that will hopefully extend far beyond this sector of the economy, and on to the heinous predatory practices of loan companies, banks, and credit lenders nationwide.

For example, credit card companies should never be allowed to up their interest rates to more than ten percent more than the rate at which the consumer originally signed on at, and the possibility of this raise in rates should be explicitly spelled out in

BIG BOLD LETTERS THAT STAND OUT LIKE THIS AT THE TOP OF THE FUCKING AGREEMENT!

Also, interest charges on loans made to college students should never, under any circumstances, be allowed to rise up into double digit territory. This would go a long way toward solving a lot of problems, for example, the high cost of health care, which to a large extent is a result of these predatory loanng practices. Yet, credit card companies, and their supporters in Congress and state legislatures, are ever resistant to laws designed to curb these practices on college campuses.

For the time being, this law targeted at predatory home mortgage lending, is a good first step, though it is applicable to Ohio law and domain only. Still, it seems to have come just int he nick of time, a time when the housing bubble seems to have finally reached it's zenith, in a lot of areas of the country.

In fact, there are now ever increasing instances of homes that have set opn the market unsold, for weeks, even months. No one is selling. Because more and more, nobody is buying-not at these rates.

And so, it looks as though George Bush's credit card economy might well be on the way to seeing one of the mainstays of it's strength dwindling. The much touted housing market. No, the bubble hasn't exactly burst. But the air is leaking out, slowly, perhaps, but definitely.