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Monday
Jan032011

A Grassroots Movement Against Usury: Ten Percent (10%) Is Enough - Video

Thanks to the producers of this short film for sending it our way.

A 10% cap on credit card and other interest rates...  

This report shows that banks made $39 billion in overdraft fees in 2009.  That is an all-time record.  Let that sink in.  You bailed them out and they respond by hiking fees. 

Thirty-nine billion.

"It could be the most exciting social movement to come out of the financial crisis: a movement to cap interest rates at 10%. This video captures the birth of the movement -- on July 22nd, when simultaneous rallies in five U.S. cities and London put the biggest banks on notice."

10 minute version...

 

 

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Reader Comments (14)

Any time you put a limit on something you get less of it! Money will go elsewhere to seek maximum return and the people who need the money will not get it. Just like setting a minimum wage will reduce employment. People at the bottom will suffer in either case.
Aug 12, 2009 at 10:54 AM | Unregistered CommenterSH
Just put the cap on TARP banks. If they can't hack it, then we'll take the blood of their first born. After all, they've been sucking our blood for some time now.
Aug 12, 2009 at 11:30 AM | Unregistered CommenterJames H
Yes....lets limit the TARP banks profits so the taxpayer owns them into perpituity...good plan. If you don't like your CC rate, don't use it...
Aug 12, 2009 at 12:13 PM | Unregistered CommenterG
Of course this begs the question on why the banks can charge interest AT ALL on a fiat currency. At least in times of past, the usurer had something to back the loan. Now we print paper and create digital debt out of thin air. 10%? Anything over 0% is too much. We create debt and call it capital. I thank the banks for their wonderful contribution to society. [/sarcasm]. Now let's put some debt to work.
Aug 12, 2009 at 12:29 PM | Unregistered Commenterspideydouble
I think banks can make plenty at 10%...and higher rates tend to crowd out other, more worthy investments.

Think about it...if capital can earn 20% in the debt business, not enough capital will go to manufacturing and other areas where a 20% return is harder to find.

I would have no problem with a cap of 5% above the prime rate, whereever it might be at any given time.

Prime PLUS 5 might be a movement that could gain traction. A flat 10% cap won't go anywhere on Capitol Hill.
Aug 12, 2009 at 3:08 PM | Unregistered CommenterDailyBail
Financial charlatans are what bankers AND the Gov't are....There is no way 10% will NOT be profitable for banks. IT WOULD NOT under the current system because EVERYONE gets a credit card. Limit credit to those who deserve it. Credit is NOT a God given or Consitiutional RIGHT. Credit is a privilege. If the banks cut the lowest 10% off from credit, overall rates would drop. The lowest 10-20% of cardholders account for 80% of the banks losses. You who say the poor need credit are right but they FIRST need jobs. This is the fallacy of our economy. Credit runs out but jobs are growth engines that beget more growth and also more jobs. This "old world" business model has been abandoned for the new world order "global economy" and the new age of economics has FAILED on a global scale.....That AIN'T NO B.S.!
Aug 12, 2009 at 10:20 PM | Unregistered CommenterAin't Bullshittin'
Conversely.....if you max out your credit...you are a slave to debt. That is the model that the Gov't has pushed onto America and Global Governments have also push onto their people. This is nothing new...serfs were slaves in Kingdoms long before freedom and liberty were a flicker in our founding fathers eyes. Freedom is the brother of Liberty and Oppression is the Father of them both. For if it were not for oppression the brothers would have never broken ranks with their evil father. Good is working through this evil financial disaster. Freedom and Liberty will once again rise to combat oppression. Keep the faith because faith is believing in things unseen. You see the bad but I assure you that evil cannot exist alone. It is a yen and yang...where there is evil there is also good. Good has been battered, bruised , and ignored but it's voice is as loud as thunder and is unshakable. Where there is darkness...there is also light. The world just has to turn a little more for the light to reveal itself. Have patience and keep the faith....AB
Aug 12, 2009 at 10:27 PM | Unregistered CommenterAin't Bullshittin'
SH,

The US had laws regarding usury until the Supreme Court decision a couple of decades ago. Was it a problem back then? It's debatable that people on the bottom need payday loans and check cashing services as much as they need the banking system we had 25 years ago.
Aug 12, 2009 at 10:28 PM | Unregistered CommenterPaxAmerican
Good comments here.
Aug 13, 2009 at 1:12 AM | Registered CommenterDailyBail
The financial charlatans have been engineering the removal of the "job creation engine" for years to weaken America, using their servants in government and business. America will not survive as a service nation, standards of living will drop, tax base will drop, and poverty and joblessness will increase.

It is said that you can measure the degradation of society by the number of payday loan places and pawn shops in a community. I am sure everyone see's them increasing in numbers.

@ AB

Your second post was impressively written.

@ PaxAmerican

Payday loans and check cashing services are primarily in business to cash welfare checks and can charge up to 25% for that service, since people on welfare can't have bank accounts.

They also do the payday loans preying on those who earn less in society at rates that once upon a time would have been called loan sharking.

It is bad enough that the taxpayer foots the bill for welfare programs, but to see these check cashing places operate in this fashion amounts to exploitation at the taxpayers expense.



The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations.

Noam Chomsky


Civilization can only revive when there shall come into being in a number of individuals a new tone of mind, independent of the prevalent one among the crowds, and in opposition to it -- a tone of mind which will gradually win influence over the collective one, and in the end determine its character. Only an ethical movement can rescue us from barbarism, and the ethical comes into existence only in individuals.

Albert Schweitzer
Aug 13, 2009 at 2:08 PM | Unregistered CommenterS. Gompers
Nice quotes, Gompers. Enjoyed them.
Aug 14, 2009 at 3:01 PM | Registered CommenterDailyBail
This is nothing new, and when you really educate yourself about it, honestly, it makes you want to puke and move to Sweden, who already have a banking system based on genuine wealth, not just monetary wealth. Read "The Economics of Happiness" by Mark Anielski!!!!!!!

Aristotle in 350 B.C.:
The most hated sort of money-making, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself and not from the natural use of it-for money was intended merely for exchange, not for increase at interest. And this term interest, which implies the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money, because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of money-making, this is the most unnatural.

Saint Thomas Aquinas:
He who takes usury for a loan of money acts unjustly for he sells what does not exist. It is wrong in itself to take a price (usury) for the use of money lent, and as in the case of other offences against justice, one is bound to make restitution of his unjustly acquired money.

Thomas Jefferson:
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a money aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power (of money) should be taken from the banks, and restored to the people to whom it belongs.

Abraham Lincoln:
The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes.

Henry Ford:
The function of money is not to make money but to move goods. Money is only one part of our transportation system. It moves goods from man to man. A dollar bill is like a postage stamp: it is no good unless it will move commodities between persons. If a postage stamp will not carry a letter, or money will not move goods, it is just the same as an engine that will not run. Someone will have to get out and fix it.

Also Henry Ford (and my favorite):
It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.
Sep 3, 2009 at 3:11 PM | Unregistered CommenterDH
Really enjoyed reading the quotes DH.
Sep 8, 2009 at 2:04 AM | Registered CommenterDailyBail
Not Joe the Plumber, Joe the Congressman Wilson is the new HERO!!!!!!!
Sep 9, 2009 at 11:18 PM | Unregistered CommenterGobias Bluth

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