What ever happened to legal prohibitions on outright usury...? Maybe Bernie Sanders has the answer...

the definition of usury...

usu·ry
Pronunciation:
\ˈyü-zhə-rē, ˈyüzh-rē\

1archaic : interest
2: the lending of money with an interest charge for its use ; especially : the lending of money at exorbitant interest rates
3: an unconscionable or exorbitant rate or amount of interest ; specifically : interest in excess of a legal rate charged to a borrower for the use of money

usury from wikipedia...

[O]ne must always consider that usury, in historical context, has always been inextricably linked to economic abuses, mostly of the masses and of the poor ... . The main moral argument is that usury creates excessive profit and gain without "labor" which is deemed "work" in the Biblical context. Profits from usury are argued not to arise from any substantial labor or work but from mere avarice, greed, trickery and manipulation. In addition, usury is said to create a divide between people due to obsession with monetary gain. Most importantly, usury is the derivation of profit from biological time, which is linked to life, considered sacred, God-given and divine, leading to excessive worrying about money instead of God, thus subjugating a God-given sanctity of life to man-made artificial notions of material wealth.

and yet, we seem to tolerate it in the modern age... or maybe not...

Since the beginning of the year, millions of credit card customers have been hit with higher interest rates -- in many cases from lenders that have received billions of dollars in bailout cash from taxpayers.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, responded last week with legislation that would impose a 15% cap on rates for all consumer loans, including plastic.

And you know what? It just might work.

That's because Sanders' bill would trump a 1978 Supreme Court ruling that allowed banks to set credit card rates at whatever their home state allowed. Banks, in turn, high-tailed it to places like South Dakota and Delaware, which abandoned their usury laws to entice financial institutions into setting up shop.

"Every state would have to honor a federal rate cap of 15%," Sanders told me. "It would be a national usury law."

ever wonder why the average person receives up to a dozen solicitations for credit cards weekly...? it's just another manifestation of the greed fostered by our rapidly-collapsing, debt-based financial system...

are credit cards a necessity...? for me, i'd have to say, absolutely... with the travel i do and the lag time between the time i incur large expenses for hotel and airline travel and the time i get reimbursed, i would have to carry large - and potentially dangerous - amounts of cash, cash that i would constantly be running to currency exchanges to convert at THEIR usurious rates...

the only thing that keeps me away from the credit card companies shaking me down practically at gun-point to fork over their obscene interest rates, is that i pay off my entire credit card balance monthly, whether or NOT i've received the reimbursement... i simply can't afford to pay what they're charging and, besides, it's a matter of principle...

you go, senator...

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