Mark Winston Griffith

Mike: More Power to the People

Mr. Mayor. Mike Blooms. Baby. Since you and I are going to be hanging out for the next four years, allow me to suggest three items for your to-do list:

Whisper sweet somethings into your woman's ear: Please talk to your boo, Diana Taylor, the New York State Banking Superintendent and advise her to abandon her plans to permit State chartered banks to offer overdraft protection. This isn't just about State chartered banks trying to find a way to push outrageously high-cost credit on poor people through overdrafts on their checking accounts. With one wave of her hand, Darling Diana is about to declare open season on every worthwhile consumer protection that the State Banking Department now offers the fair residents of your city.

Just say "no": Mike, I give you big props for the PACE program, an initiative which attempts to protect people in Bed-Stuy, Bushwick and Southeast Queens from predatory lending. (By the way, thanks for partnering with the organization I co-direct, NEDAP). But if you really want to stop predatory lending, make it a matter of policy for the City to not do business with financial institutions that bank roll predatory lending by selling predatory loans as a Wall Street investment.

Refund This!: While we're on the subject of predatory lending, every day during tax season $1.4 billion dollars are sucked mostly from low-income communities in the form of tax refund anticipation loans. Mayor Mike, why don't you condemn the tax preparers who are making these usurious loans?

If you do these three things, then you will earn the title, the People's Mayor.

Mark Winston Griffith: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 10:41 PM, Nov 13, 2005 in Fiscal Responsibility | New York | Progressive Agenda
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