The brazenness of the largest American bankers is now so patently transparent that it is arguably criminal. Yet, when you own the local sheriff and prosecutor, it’s a sure bet there will never be any charges filed.

In a previous post I called out J.P. Morgan Chase’s commercial banking subsidiary for raising interest rates on their credit card holders in an effort to squeeze extraordinary profits out of their customers ahead of the reform coming out of Congress.

Now other banks are following suit and working at a frenzied pace in order to raise rates and fees to unheard of levels before the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act becomes law.   These are the very banks that we bailed out – and now they have the audacity to screw us.  Compounding the problem was the U.S. Senate’s refusal to accelerate the effective date of the reform measures from February 22, 2010 to December 1, 2009, defying the U.S. House of Representatives’ attempt to stop these financial terrorists from exploiting us. 

Ever wonder what is in it for the Senators?  If you watched PBS ’s Frontline on November 23, 2009,   called The Card Game, the banking consultants, lobbyists, and their shameless political minions are  interviewed for this remarkable story and it’s exploration of the banking industry’s credit card business.  There are numerous instances of individuals defending their practices of charging outrageous rates of interest  on a “loan” – I mean the kind of rates that would make a loan shark shudder.

What is most surprising is how craftily the politicians dance around the notion that giving these financial terrorists another couple of months to screw as many credit card holders as possible in order to maximize their profits for years to come will be long forgotten in the next election cycle.  Let’s face some simple facts.   The enormous amount of money these politicians receive from the financial industry in the form of campaign contributions - both Democrats and Republicans collectively took in almost $500 Million from the financial industry in the 2008 election cycle – goes virtually unnoticed by the general public.   

Moreover, their political consultants know that in spite of their transparent complicity in allowing the credit card industry more time to run up interests rates prior to the new law going into effect, most of the politicians’  constituents will not even likely know about this transgression of monumental proportions.  Furthermore, even if a very small minority of us do know – as is evidenced by this post – they are confident that this fact will be long forgotten in the endless cycle of the “politics of distraction” fomented by the partisan rancor that occurs every day and is then reported in the media.

They right . . . and we will re-elect the incumbant based on our fear of the other party’s candidate getting elected – whether it be Democrat or Republican.  They rely on that fact – to our detriment.  Both parties in the U.S. Senate.

And that’s how we continue to screw ourselves.

P.S. to the Banking Industry:  I WILL NOT FORGET!!!