Senate upholds usury

If you were hoping for any kind of real reform of credit card company abuses, forget it. The Senate voted in support of credit card company loan-sharking with only 33 members voting for Senator Bernard Sanders' proposal to cap interest rates at 15%. It seems the credit card companies don't think they can stay in business unless they can spontaneously jack your rates at any time, for no reason at all, to up to 41%. In fact, over 1/3 of credit card holders are now paying over 20% in interest alone. This leads to stories like this Michigan man who has been trying to pay off a $4,000 debt since 1986. So far he's paid $15,000 and only been credited with $1,800 in payments to the principal thanks to fees and interest rates.

You may ask yourself why the Senators would so shamelessly support business practices that would be considered illegal if they were being conducted by a private loan-sharker. As always, follow the money. DWT has a list of the traitors along with the amounts of campaign payola they've received from the banking industry. Disgusting. There ought to be a way to hold these people accountable under the law for such shameless pandering to special interests. As it stands, I guess anything we can do to hold them up to public ridicule will have to do for now.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]