I would hope this is an idea that grows legs - an
ANTI-USURY CONSUMER LEAGUE
The agenda would be simple - credit extenders are screwing people worse than taxing governments are, there's little to debate there. So, fix the situation.
Eighteen percent is an outrage: Make, by referendum, every extension of credit including "open end credit accounts" aka credit card debt subject to a referendum-set usurious interest rate limit and deny imposition of any service charges greater than or in addition to an annual $50.00 charge to maintain and service an account. Make it apply to any and all mortgages and auto loans, where if the security is foreclosed or repossessed there can be no deficiency judgment or personal liability after the act of foreclosure or repossession.
Demand that to get YOUR vote a US Rep. or Senator take the "Usurious Credit Pledge," that he/she will diligently support and work for enactment of a simple national usury law comparable to the various state referenda being passed, except that any US resident may sue and is entitled to credit at the lower of the federal rate or the rate allowed by his/her state legislature - make the federal usury rate a ceiling and not any kind of a floor for the rapacious credit card interests.Regulate it, and allow a consumer to recover enhanced damages and attorney fees if suing a credit-extending entity; with easily met class action certification court rules so that private litigation will supplement regulation - and give state attorneys general power to sue on behalf of a state's population.
If they are usuerers, which they are, punish them for that but don't go blaming folks who imprudently ran up too much debt on the credit cards and are being hosed.
You are the people. Jefferson said:
When governments fear people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.
He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the Principles and form of our Constitution. I am an Enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but Coin. If the American People allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the People of all their Property until their Children will wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.
What Jefferson meant, in terms of the "credit crunch" we hear so much about, has on the web been depicted this way - with "credit crunch" meaning the supply of circulating money together with credit extension is precipitously put out of balance in favor of those controlling the issuance of credit to consumers and businesses:
Now, the Federal Reserve our "Central Bank" is not really "ours." It is owned by member banks, in effect, a bankers' bank, doing what's best for banks, long-term, short-term, mid-term -- which means don't kill the goose laying bankers' golden eggs, but squeeze the laying rate to as much as the animal will bear short of dying. And another visual, does this make sense:
Remember those new-design bills your wallet holds, used to say "Redeemable in legal tender," and now only say "Federal Reserve Note" and "This is legal tender." The Federal Reserve controls money amounts in circulation; and in fractional reserve banking where a bank need not hold 100% dollar amounts of deposits to cover outstanding loans, the biggest and easiest way to make big changes is to alter the reserve requirement rate, rather than other tools the Fed has. That they use that major tool infrequently is proof they understand not killing the Golden Goose, and that they yin and yang the money supply with their lesser tools is proof they understand getting the maximum Gold Goose laying rate for their constituency - banks.
Wake up. Stand up. Make demands. Vote smart.