Douglas Whaley

Yes, readers, it’s happened again.  Yesterday the Republicans, by a 51-50 vote in the Senate (Vice President Pence cast the tie-breaking vote) and by an overwhelming majority in the House, have forbidden consumers to exercise their usual right to go to court when banks engage in outrageous practices.  Our President is sure to sign the law when it reaches his desk; http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/24/consumer-protection-arbitration-senate-pence-244140 .   Banks love this.  Now when the banks come up with new ways to screw customers, the customers will remain screwed, with no legal redress of any kind.  Perhaps state attorneys general will take action against the banks (ho, ho, ho, given that most states have Republican administrations that are very bank-oriented) or perhaps state and federal bank regulators will do so (another ho, ho, ho, since in a Trumpian world Republicans are mostly in charge of those entities too). Let me give you a

Noah had no idea how old he really was but since he was certainly the oldest person he knew it sometimes seemed like he must be six hundred, so that’s what he claimed as his age.  Eventually he’d really come to believe that number.  It’s what he told his eventual biographer. When the bad dreams started coming, the ones about God Almighty destroying the world with a great flood and construction of a great ark, he didn’t want to believe it at first, but God in those dreams was very angry and very insistent, so Noah, terrified, had done what he was told.  The dreams contained detailed instructions, hazily remembered as most dreams are, and he’d had to fill in the blanks creatively.  But now, amazingly, the ark was more or less built—it had taken forever to figure out what a “cubit” was—and things seemed to be progressing better than expected.  That was good because the weather was changing and ominous clouds presaged ugly storms approaching like troopers.  But t