Word: cards
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal’s lilting response to President Obama’s address to the nation, blogger Ann Althouse asked, “Why are all these people so confident that they are not manifesting racism?” Thus began another episode of race-card Tourette’s. Though many hoped that such accusatory innuendo would cease with Obama’s election, its metastasis to the right has exposed its severity...
...populated only by recent economic migrants from Bangladesh. In 1978, he was returning from a visit to his home village in the northern part of the state when Burmese immigration officers stopped him at the ferry jetty and told him there was a mistake on his national registration card. He was to turn it in and receive a new one soon. That was three decades ago; the new proof of citizenship never arrived. Since then, O Lam Myit, like everyone else in his village, has not been able to travel without applying for an exorbitantly priced permit...
...When TIME asked Croxson if lenders are being caught unawares by the sudden change in fortune for hordes of previously creditworthy customers, he said that a tightening of standards by credit-card issuers is actually behind many of the calls that CareOne is getting. People with four or five credit cards who thought their outstanding credit lines could see them through a tight spot are getting notice that their credit lines are being cut. With that cushion gone, they run into trouble. "Not that it's a cushion you should ever rely on to pay for living expenses," Croxson said...
...Settlement is a renegotiation of debts that stops short of bankruptcy. Unsecured creditors such as credit-card issuers are willing to accept sharply reduced paybacks from especially troubled customers because they might not get a penny in bankruptcy court. The field has been replete with shady operators and high fees, but states are beginning to regulate it, and Croxson thinks it's headed for mainstream legitimacy (CareOne does not do debt settlement but sometimes steers clients in that direction). Big-time financial trouble is on its way to becoming a respectable middle-class phenomenon...
...thing Dodd has done of late is tack hard to populism. He has held hearings on credit-card abuses and introduced stringent legislation to prevent companies from luring consumers into dangerous amounts of debt. Last October, Senate majority leader Harry Reid took the unusual move of overriding a Democratic hold on a bill after Dodd tried to block an extension of President George W. Bush's warrantless wiretapping powers over concerns from the left about granting telecom giants retroactive immunity for working with the Administration. Most notably, Dodd, against the wishes of the White House, slipped into the stimulus bill...