America Had No 20% Interest Rates Until 1978 — One Ruling Changed Everything

Secret State Files and Uncover Things YouTube ^ | August 12, 2026 | Secret State Files

[Texan4Life]

For most of American history, charging someone 20% interest on a loan was illegal. Every state had usury laws capping rates at 6%, 8%, sometimes 10%. These protections dated back thousands of years — from the Code of Hammurabi to colonial America. Then in 1978, one Supreme Court ruling quietly changed everything.

The case was Marquette National Bank v. First of Omaha Service Corporation, and almost nobody noticed when it was decided. But it opened a legal loophole that allowed banks to "export" interest rates from their home state to customers nationwide. What followed was a chain reaction: a desperate Citibank fleeing New York, a small-state governor looking for jobs, a handshake deal in South Dakota, and a race to the bottom as state after state dismantled their usury laws to compete for credit card companies.

Today, the average American credit card charges over 22% interest. Total U.S. credit card debt has surpassed $1.39 trillion. Americans paid over $253 billion in credit card interest and fees in 2025 alone. And the consumer protections that prevented all of this? Gone — dismantled in less than a decade.

This is the story of how America's oldest financial protection was quietly destroyed, who profited from it, and why Congress has done nothing to fix it for over 45 years.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Government
KEYWORDS: banking; greed; usury

[Texan4Life]

God is watching . . .

[George from New England]

Was this the start of laundering of political funding ?

[citizen]

The world went off the Gold Standard....and soon a lot of bad things happened.

[jimtorr]

I have a Credit Union card that I’ve had since 1992. The initial rate was 12.5%, where it stayed for 18 years. It’s up to 15.4% now.

I once had a Chase Manhattan VISA card. I sent in a payment that was late by one day, and my interest rate went from 18% to 28%. I canceled that card ASAP.

[chud]

Thanks for posting this.

The beginning of the video sums it up well: for thousands of years, nearly every civilization on Earth agreed that usury (loaning money at excessively high rates) was one of the most predatory things that one human being could do to another.
Even the Babylonians knew it 4,000 years ago.

Then bankers, politicians, and Supreme Court justices screwed us, for the sake of the economy.

I'm Gen-X, and when I was younger, I sort of vaguely knew that credit cards were uncommon, but then suddenly they took off in the late 70s / early 80s until almost everyone had one. I just didn't know the details, and I'm sure that's by design.

The banks would hate if people started writing to their Senators and Representatives, telling them to regulate interest rates on banks making interstate loans.

[chud]

The world went off the Gold Standard....and soon a lot of bad things happened.

Amen, brother! Truer words were never spoken...

[dadgum]

Bingo!!!

[Dan Zachary]

my interest rate went from 18% to 28%

My daughter was late on a card and it jumped to 74%. Guess that is legal by a card supplied from an Indian bank in South Dakota. I gave her the $500 to pay it off and cancel it.

[Mr Radical]

I’ve had a credit card for more than 50 years and not paid a penny interest or fees. I guess I must be doing something wrong!

[Uncle Miltie]

“Usury” is an opinion and resulting price control about someone else’s cost of current money versus future money, given risk, etc.

To impose a certain price of money is just as logical as imposing a price of Rent (Mamdani), bread (Soviet Union) or any and every other thing.

The extremely high risk of some people regarding their future ability to pay is between them and their relative, neighbor, banker, check cashing shop or loan shark.

We aren’t going to do anything but drive that transaction underground by setting its price by law.