Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you.
Posted on 08/12/2026 9:47:57 PM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
|
|
Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you. |
Was this the start of laundering of political funding ?
The world went off the Gold Standard....and soon a lot of bad things happened.
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.
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.
Amen, brother! Truer words were never spoken...
Bingo!!!
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.
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!
“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.
From a distance…
No interest rate should be over 6% period. And let the chips fall where they may. We still have the 2nd Amendment.
I remember when the CFPB stepped in to protect us and I lost all my long-standing low-interest credit-card APRs.
Islamists claim Sharia law caps interest rates below market because because charging market rates is against Islamic laws.
Very few people pay them off monthly in full. I’ve had AMEX for 32+ years at 0% interest an no spending cap and everything we do is charged monthly and auto payed monthly. I like the detailed end of year expenditures list.
Filthy shylocks. Better off with a mafia juice loan.
I beg to differ. If there wrre such a list, usury would be dead last on a long and disturbing list.
I use a credit card for ALMOST everything I purchase. Same, pay off whatever the balance is twice a month, and have thousands in bonus points.
Whatever purchases I don't want government/data brokers to know about I use cash and don't bring my cell phone with me. (FJ doesn't have GPS)
Same here. I don’t even know what the interest rate is. We in full immediately, so never paid attention.
Once, before we got online statements, we didn’t receive our paper Exxon bill, didn’t realize it, so it didn’t get paid. The nasty grams and threats to our credit rating started immediately. I called and told them to review our payment history and re-think their position.
(This is back when could call and speak to a person. Now it’s all AI when trying to contact an institution.)
They did, and they backed off. Now we sign up for email statements, plus autopay from our checking account.
My card is paid off automatically. I have no idea what the rate is
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.