Sen. Dodd (D-CT) wants to crack down on overdraft fees, so maybe you’ll just get dinged $10 for an overdraft instead of a larcenous $35. This must make him the champion of the little guy, right? Not hardly. He’ll toss you that little bone, but when it comes to the important issues, he’s right in bed with the Fed and the banks and against your interests.
As witness this NPR interview. He strongly opposes the Fed getting increased banking regulatory power because that would mean they’d have to explain more about what they’re doing. Seriously, that’s his reasoning. He does not want any transparency or openness when it comes to the Fed. Gosh, and they’ve done such a wonderful job these past few decades being opaque, haven’t they?
But here’s the really obnoxious part. He opposes banks being required to offer potential home buyers a “plain vanilla” mortgage and not just the more exotic, riskier ones (which of course are way more profitable for the banks.)
He sanctimoniously says this is because “the idea that we’re going to promote one financial product over another makes me uneasy.” Oh please. Like the current practice of refusing to offer plain vanilla mortgages isn’t favoring the more exotic ones.
So, he’ll give you $25 back on that overdraft charge – as long as the Fed remains utterly opaque and banks can be duplicitous on offering mortgages. He is not your friend.
Lookee here. From OpenSecrets. Sen. Dodd campaign contributions. 4 of the top 5 are banks or hedge funds. Imagine that.