A query for Sen. Stabenow: What ever became of usury?

[Bozita]

A query for Sen. Stabenow: What ever became of usury?
BY BRIAN DICKERSON • FREE PRESS COLUMNIST • MAY 17, 2009


Christopher Dodd, who chairs the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, puts it bluntly: "We are seeing interest rates," the Connecticut Democrat recently remarked, "that people used to go to jail for."

He was talking about the rates that credit card issuers charge their high-risk customers, their not-so-high-risk customers, and any other customer whose rate can be hiked without notice, which includes just about everyone.

The outrage engendered by unrestrained rate hikes prompted the U.S. House to adopt legislation earlier this year imposing new limits on credit card issuers. Dodd and his Senate colleagues are expected to vote on a similar bill Tuesday. Congressional conferees say the differences between the two versions are now minor, and President Barack Obama is keen to sign a Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights before Memorial Day.

The outgrowth of hearings convened in 2007 by Michigan Democrat Carl Levin, the Senate bill would prohibit credit card issuers from imposing retroactive interest rate hikes unless a cardholder made a payment more than 60 days late, require issuers to restore lower rates to penalized cardholders once they had made six months of on-time payments, and limit the number of penalty fees issuers could charge cardholders who exceed their credit limits.

Why pay less?

What the bill probably won't do is lower interest rates for the one-fifth of U.S. cardholders currently paying in excess of 20%.

An effort to limit the maximum interest rate credit card issuers are allowed to charge was easily defeated when it came to a vote last Wednesday.

Levin and 32 other senators voted in favor of Vermont independent Bernie Sanders' amendment, which would have capped rates at the same 15% ceiling the National Credit Union Administration imposes on federal credit unions. But 60 senators, including Levin's junior Democratic colleague, Debbie Stabenow, heeded the banking lobby's warning that any ceiling would rattle financial markets and leave millions of U.S. households with no access to unsecured credit.

more...

http://www.freep.com/article/20090517/COL04/905170439

[Warren Stupidity]

1. It was abolished for national banks as part of the Slow Coup

You remember the Slow Coup don't you? The one where the Banksters and MIC Thugs slowly took over control of all three branches of government?

[Wapsie B]

2. Dodd is so right. People who charged obscene rates of interest used to be called loan sharks.

Amazing how a bunch of sleazy lobbyists for the banking industry can make what was once a crime not only legal but standard business practice.

[Mythsaje]

3. Note the paragraph in bold...

To translate: "Banking lobbyists warn that if the cap goes into effect, they'll refuse to loan money to anyone whose credit isn't 'perfect' and deliberately fuck up the economy more than they already have. Fearful of this bit of blackmail, nearly half of the Democratic Senators shit their pants and capitulated."

[Demeter]

4. It's Not Possible to Make This Economy any Worse

Any further attacks will only lead to improvement as they will be blowing their cover and become prime targets for public retribution.