"Elizabeth Warren Helps Answer the Question: Can the Middle Class Be Saved?" (video)

Common Dreams with video from The Rachel Maddow Show, (06:20).

William Greider on loan sharks: Cantwell, Murray "voted with the sharks"

In the Senate, Dick Durbin of Illinois, the majority whip who rounds up votes for the party, introduced his own usury bill--a cap of 36 percent including the non-interest fees and charges. Durbin's bill also empowered state governments to set lower limits. The Consumer Federation of America endorsed it, but the consumer lobbyists asked Durbin not to have a roll call on his measure because it might reveal their weakness.

Nevertheless, the redoubtable Bernie Sanders of Vermont demanded a vote on his bill--an interest-rate cap of 15 percent.

"When banks are charging 30 percent interest rates, they are not making credit available," Sanders said. "They are engaged in loan sharking." Sanders lost, 33 to 60. Twenty-one Democrats voted with the sharks. Senators Carper, Cantwell, Byrd, Bingaman, Bayh, Baucus, Akaka, Warner, Tester, Stabenow, Specter, Shaheen, Pryor, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Murray, Lincoln, Landrieu, Kaufman, Johnson, Hagan.

-from "The Trouble With Democrats" (The Nation).