this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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This would save young Americans from going into crippling debt, but it would also make a university degree completely unaffordable for most. However, in the age of the Internet, that doesn't mean they couldn't get an education.

Consider the long term impact of this. There are a lot of different ways such a situation could go, for better and for worse.

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[โ€“] kirklennon@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He was known for being very friendly to banks and credit card companies, as a Senator from Delaware would be inclined to be, considering that Delaware is home to many of those types of businesses.

Is it? Visa is in San Francisco, Discover is in Illinois, and Mastercard and Amex are in New York.

JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley are in New York. Bank of America is in Charlotte. Wells Fargo is in San Francisco. Those are the nation's six largest banks. Delaware doesn't make an appearance until #94 on the biggest bank list.

Delaware is a popular state for essentially paperwork, due primarily to its efficient and well-established Chancery Court, but it's not really a major player in the banking industry. There aren't a many people or businesses in Delaware involved in banking beyond the local branch stuff in every community.

[โ€“] xapr@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yes, it is. Visa and Mastercard are not card issuers. Example: "Visa does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers; rather, Visa provides financial institutions with Visa-branded payment products that they then use to offer credit, debit, prepaid and cash access programs to their customers."

This article provides details of why Delaware is attractive to banks (various financial and legal incentives), how it became that way (legislation written by major bank lawyers), and some ways it benefits from this (jobs, tax revenue).

Biden didn't earn the nickname "The Senator from MBNA" for no reason. MBNA was a huge credit card company that was later bought[?] by Bank of America. "Over the past 20 years [as of 2008], MBNA has been Biden's single largest contributor."

[โ€“] kirklennon@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Visa and Mastercard are not card issuers.

Yes, I'm quite aware of that but you said "banks and credit card companies" so I also included, well, credit card companies.

This article provides details of why Delaware is attractive to banks

The article points out that all of those paperwork incorporations of companies that are nominally based in Delaware don't equate to that many jobs because the companies are actually based elsewhere. Delaware is a bit player in the banking industry.

Anyway, this is veering way off topic. The point is that Biden did not make student loans bankruptcy-proof. You can't attribute bipartisan legislation to a single non-sponsor, minority-party member who happened to vote for it. I don't care if he changed his middle name to "I love big banks." The original statement was still ridiculous.

[โ€“] xapr@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago

I agree that this is veering way off topic, but you seem to like to argue semantics.

My main point was that Biden, at that time a senator of a majority Democratic state, voted with Republicans and a minority of Democratic senators of mostly conservative states to pass a bill that would benefit his largest donor, MBNA, as well as other banks, to the detriment of common people. While the OP may have overstated Biden's involvement with this bill, you seem to be understating it.