Seniors. AARP. Warren. Consumer Protection.

Seniors we need to get together and start an organization that truly represents seniors. Whoa Nellie! What about AARP? Don’t they represent seniors? Sorry Charlie, but nope. AARP represents insurance companies that want to sell insurance to seniors. How do I know that? Well first I open my AARP mail? AARP sends me an insurance opportunity a week. Let’s see. I pay an AARP membership fee to get insurance offers. Ain’t I lucky? Second, I have never been asked to vote on anything by AARP so how can they represent me. It is an association of retired persons is it not? If it is, then why do they not ask me to vote on something? Conclusion, they do not represent retired persons.

If you visit the AARP website, you will notice that the first valuable AARP benefit listed is “access to health insurance, automobile insurance, homeowners insurance…” And further you can get this valuable access by paying an annual membership fee to AARP. Hello-o! By the way, you can get the same access to this valuable service for free, by dialing your local insurance agent. Does that help you non-believers about AARP?

And seniors, I know you are overjoyed by the establishment of the consumer protection bureau-currently funded by a measly $100 million. It hardly merits a legislative “earmark,” pork barrel to you old timers. Here is the skinny on the fat.

Warren a Harvard university law professor help set up the consumer protection bureau. How did we get so lucky to get this new agency? “We got the agency because the American people want it, and they want a voice in Washington.” Warren said. “And that is what I am here to do.” This comment by Warren is troublesome. I always thought my voice in Washington was my senator and my congressman and of course the president.

The bureau has the power to impose rules on mortgages, credit cards and layaway plans. You remember layaway plans -- they were popular 40 years ago. Lawmakers said the bureau was necessary because existing regulations failed to protect borrowers against the lending practices blamed for fueling the credit crisis. Now there is a joke. The credit crisis, according to this statement, harmed the borrowers. The lenders were the bad guys. But wait wasn’t it a fact that it was the lenders that received billions to lessen their pain. I never received a nickel. You see how this is puzzling.

We were harmed, but the harmers got the money. The bureau is not going to change that scenario because the harmers were rewarded from the very people that we elect to protect us. Maybe the bureau should focus on protecting us from our elected representatives. This is getting complicated, isn’t it?

Warren has already moved decisively to protect us. She is recommending combining two mortgage lending forms into a single simple form. Wow, I feel safer already. This will do nothing for us, but will likely save the lending companies millions of dollars in paper work. Who comes up with these ideas to protect consumers from the wolves? The wolves do!

On credit card problems, she is also moving decisively. She is recommending labeling credit cards similar to way companies are required to label the nutritional value of food. Really, Professor Warren do you honestly believe a label on a credit card protects consumers. The FDA has required labels with cancer warnings on cigarettes for years. The cigarette companies still do pretty well.

The consumer protection bureau will eventually provide jobs for thousands of new bureaucrats all debating the pros and cons of labels. Maybe we could convince them to hire a few seniors as label experts. What do you think? If you can not beat-em, join-em.