A Conversation

by Jeff Sovern

Cross-posted from the New Deal 2.0 blog:

Martin: How’d you do this year?

Powell: Low seven figures. You?

Martin: It’d just make you feel bad.

Powell: You got more? This new restraint is just killing me.

Martin: You guys should never have taken the bailout.

Powell: What else could we do? The bank would have gone down.

Martin: Yeah, well, I really need the money. Promised the kid a new Porsche.

Powell: Again? What for?

Martin: Nothing below a B on his report card.

Powell: Well, he deserved it then.

Martin: You know what they say. Money is the mother of all incentives.

Powell: Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask you: did you guys switch your regulator?

Martin: Yeah, of course. The state was demanding all sorts of stuff from us, so we changed. Goodbye state regulator, hello federal regulator.

Powell: I love the federal agencies. They give us a lot of freedom. Plus they kept those crazy state predatory lending laws from applying to us.

Martin: Well, the feds want the fees we pay, and they know if they fuss at us, we might as well stay with the states. And when things don’t work out so well, bailout city. But you think Congress will mess it up?

Powell: Can you believe the nerve? They want a new agency to protect borrowers? What, they think there’s an agency that protects banks?

Martin: You know, we’re lucky all these issues go over people’s heads. No soundbite for the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. It’s not like when Congress passed that credit card bill last summer. People got that one. The senators we give contributions to didn’t dare vote against it. But when the issues are complicated, the old scare tactics work.

Powell:  Can you say it with me:  “Pass this bill and people will get less credit and it’ll cost more.”

Martin: Hey, have you been paying attention to this proposal to change the disclosure forms? You know, the forms the borrowers get when they take out the loans to tell ‘em what they’re going to have to pay? The ones that said the subprime borrowers? Monthly payments would be lower than they really were?

Powell: I sure hope they’ll leave them alone. The old ones worked for twenty years. Why switch now?

Martin: Yeah, I mean, who even reads those things? Well, gotta go spend some money.

Powell: Go prop up the economy. But be discreet.

Excerpted from the Consumer Credit Chronicles, a play about people and credit

Comments

[Christine Wilton]

This conversation could have actually been a transcript of a phone call! It's like the snake oil sales of days gone by; let's razzle dazzle them and make it so complicated and over their heads and they'll buy all of it!!