DECEMBER 15, 2007 --

To: U.S. Senator Carl Levin …

Thank you for holding a Senate subcommittee hearing on credit card practices.  May I apply a Latin phrase from tort law to this situation?  The phrase is "res ipsa loquitur." Senator, the practice of the credit card companies speaks for itself; indeed only one word is needed to describe credit cared practices. The word is -- UNCONSCIONABLE.

It is unconscionable that credit card companies raise interest rates unilaterally.

It is unconscionable that credit card companies should be permitted to practice usury by all branches of government.

It is unconscionable that credit card companies should hit late payers with penalties AND punitive interest rates on the ENTIRE balance that can only provide, in the short term, windfall profits and, thereafter, may well send the cardholder into the financial abyss.

The unconscionable practices of the credit card companies can, perhaps,  be attributed to a mindset that worships at the altar of the fictional banker-villain of "It's A Wonderful Life", Henry F. Potter, or to an attitude hostile to the spirit of capitalism.

Senator, this is to urge you to respond to the aggrandizing credit card companies by reaffirming the populist spirit set forth in the first half of Federalist 57, a spirit hostile to people seeking to enrich themselves by impoverishing of others and calling for our leaders to stand with the people.

At the very least, please give us the names of members of Congress who receive campaign contributions from the credit card companies and their executives.

To The Wall Street Journal ...

There you go again, hurling the term "populist" in what can clearly be understood as a pejorative context.  In your editorial on the presidential candidacy of Mike Huckabee, you highlighted this comment: "The populist who has the most radical tax plan as possible." Your editorial referred to Gov. Huckabee as "a smooth and folksy orator" who "delivers populist sermons against income inequality," "campaigns as a populist," and has a "populist pitch."

… and George F. Will

And what was it you wrote in a recent column, Mr. Will -- that populism was "hogwash"?

Populism is the essence of our constitutional form of government where sovereignty resides with THE PEOPLE, not with a self appointed clique.  Madison indicated at the opening of Federalist 57 that the older form of government sought the "ambitious sacrifice of many to the aggrandizement of the few."  That form of government was aristocratic.  If you have a problem with the populist form of government established by our Founders and summed up by Lincoln as government of the people, by the people and for the people, I guess that places you folks in support of government of, by and for insiders, with leaders who do not stand with the people, but over them.   

If, that is, you are hostile to populism, must be that you folks are … neo-aristocrats. Explain that to James Madison.