NC13

Serious economists are now arguing that we should not reflexively celebrate “innovation” in the financial sector as we do innovation in the real economy. I was ahead of my time. I said the same thing almost two years ago, and people laughed at me.

Okay, that may have had something to do with how I said it.

When the House debated predatory mortgage lending legislation on November 15, 2007, I responded in an extemporaneous floor speech to Republican arguments that the legislation would throttle innovation in the financial sector, using an example of innovation in the real economy that was within my reach:

The Sunlight Foundation and Matt Stoller, who blogs at Open Left, have organized a live blog tomorrow at TPMCafe about the foreclosure epidemic. We’ll talk about the legislation that Linda Sanchez (D-California) and I introduced to allow bankruptcy courts to modify predatory mortgages.

Today I received an email from Brad asking for money. At this time of the year most of us are pretty tapped out, but we still want our Dems to win. This is part of his plea:

We’ve almost raised enough to pay for what we’ve planned to spend on television, mail, flyers, signs, campaign staff, and all the rest. But not quite. To be precise, we need an extra $37,895 by Tuesday, October 31.

If you can find any money, maybe $5.00, maybe forgo that lottery ticket or a night out, it will help a good Democratic Representative keep his seat. Brad has been working hard in Washington, looking out for us, here in North Carolina and across the USA. He understands the plight of the middle class worker and has introduced legislation to prohibit predatory lending. He founded and co-chairs the bi-partisan Community College Caucus. Seeing case after case of the suppression of science by this administration, he is actively collecting stories about this censorship of real science and is building a case for the House Science Committee to investigate after the Rubber Stampers leave.