In 2015 I got this email from Elizabeth Warren, and it affected me so profoundly I have kept it ever since. I thought I would share it with you all now, because it is one of the reasons I love her and support her.
|
Rachel,
Back when I was a law professor, I did a lot of research on why working people were filing for bankruptcy.
That’s how I met Flora.
Flora was probably in her eighties by the time my research partners and I spoke with her in 2007. She and her husband had retired and moved to a small town in the South to be near family. Her husband had passed on now, but she was getting along ok – she could still manage her modest mortgage payments on her Social Security.
Then she explained that “a nice man from the bank” had called her a few years ago. He’d told her that because interest rates were low, he could give her a mortgage with a lower payment.
She asked him what would happen if interest rates went back up. He assured her that “the banks know about these things in advance” and that he would “call her and put her back in her old mortgage.”
And then she paused and quietly said: “He never called.”
Flora’s mortgage payments shot through the roof. They were swallowing nearly every penny of her Social Security checks. She had tried delaying her payments, borrowing on credit cards, going to a payday lender, but it had all come crashing down.
Flora called us one day because everyone who participated in our long bankruptcy research study was offered a $50 check. The check would be mailed to each participant a few weeks after the long interview had been conducted.
She called because she was going to be moved out of her home in a few days. She was going to be living out of her car. She called because she didn’t know how she was going to be able to get her $50 check if she didn’t have an address anymore.
That’s the real story behind the 2008 financial meltdown: the market sank, one Flora at a time. Yes, some people made bad decisions or tried to game the system, but many got trapped in lousy, deceptive mortgages filled with tricks and traps, sold by sophisticated financial institutions that should have known better.
After the market collapsed, we fought our hearts out for tough new rules to hold Wall Street accountable. The big banks spent more than $1 million a day trying to stop us, but we got a tough new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to protect people from those tricks and traps.
Now the big banks want to go backwards, rolling back the reforms we fought so hard to advance. Every day, they pay an army of lawyers and lobbyists working to water down the financial regulations, and lately they’ve taken to a new strategy – threatening to pull their campaign contributions if I don’t shut my mouth.
I want you know: The big banks don’t scare me one bit – and neither do their friends in Washington. When you and I get organized, I know we’re doing it for the millions of people just like Flora who need someone to fight back.
Thank you for being a part of this,
Elizabeth
|