Elana Levin

Councilman Gioia, the New Chief Brody on this island

If the New York Post had its way, we'd all be out on a limb when it comes to usurous credit cards. They took a dismissive tone in their op-ed about Councilman Eric Gioia's new report warning that all credit cards are not created equal-- some, usually targeted to society's most vulnerable, are downright bloodthirsty. They think its silly for him to warn the public because everyone already knows that.

The Post is right that the problem seems obvious to many financially literate people but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything to help educate the public. AND it doesn't mean these practices should be acceptable by law. To quote Mark Winston Griffith " maybe getting screwed by banks isn't news anymore" but until the screwing-over stops, it needs to stay in the news. I'll give a shout-out to Congressman Weiner for his recent work calling attention to the extreme lack of banks and financial services in low-income neighborhoods even as bank branches proliferate in wealthy ones.

NYP does rightly suggest the Councilman go after Al Sharpton next time for loan sharking "his own people" in ads for AutoMax (Mark Winston Griffith's famed post, "Al Sharpton, Predator" lives here). But it sounds like they are saying that because they hate Al, not because they are worried about low income people being ripped off.

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Posted at 6:09 AM, Jan 06, 2006 in Banking | New York
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