Comments Elsewhere

1. END CREDIT CARD USURY: Beginning in the 1980s – as part of the Reagan counter-revolution – interest rate controls began disappearing in this country. Rates that generally were below ten percent would rise as much as three times.

Let’s suppose that I don’t have enough money to cover my present expenses, for whatever reason, and the only place where I can get the money is from a lender who is going to charge me 30%. Let’s say that I think about this and decide that, all things considered, I’m better off paying the 30% premium than defaulting on my current bills (and possibly getting evicted, having my utilities shut off, or whatever). So I call up the lender and choose to sign a contract opening the line of credit at 30%.

What business is it of the government’s, exactly, whether or not I choose to do this? Where would anyone in the government get the knowledge, the virtue, or the right to butt in and override my considered decision by telling me that I can’t take out loans at that interest rate?

And what exactly do you expect me to do if I need money and I can neither scratch together what I need on my own, nor can find anyone willing to lend to me at the artificially low rates that the government has imposed upon above-ground lenders?

It’s a strange sort of populism that would deliberately set out to deprive working folks of resources for getting by in tough circumstances.