For too long, tricks and traps in mortgages, credit cards, and other financial transactions have stripped wealth from working families.
As I travel across Illinois and talk with people, and as others reach out to my office desperate for help, I am becoming convinced that, despite their rhetoric, many lenders have no interest in actually helping their customers.
We believe that you know how pernicious the vice of usury is …. We command you all by this apostolic writing not to permit those who are known as usurers to clear themselves by any subterfuge or trick when they are charged with the crime.
For many, the loan modification process has been a giant sham.
The old-fashioned idea is that responsibility falls upon those who borrow and lend. Money was not borrowed by campesinos, assembly plant workers, or slum-dwellers. The mass of the population gained little from borrowing, indeed often suffered grievously from its effects.
While payday loans are often the only source of credit for low-income Americans, these lenders are notorious for predatory practices that cause borrowers to fall deeper into debt.
There were absolutely circumstances where Sallie Mae was working hand-in-hand with for-profit schools and other schools in offering and putting students into risky expensive subprime loans.
States used to protect consumers from predatory lenders, but strong state usury laws were obliterated by a 1978 U.S. Supreme Court decision.
People 'demand' the opportunity to gamble away money they do not have, just like people 'demand' money from loan sharks at extortionate interest rates. This is a warped, empty type of freedom, in which the powerful are free to exploit the vulnerable.
I've repeatedly seen unscrupulous lenders use every con in the book to charm and lie to homeowners. Lenders actually paid brokers a premium to put people in higher-priced loans with toxic features, such as adjustable rates and prepayment penalties.
Usury once in control will wreck the nation.
The Pentagon got fed up with its recruits getting ripped off by payday lenders and in 2007 got Congress to make it illegal to extend such loans to members of the military. But civilians remain fair game.
I was absolutely astonished and could not believe my eyes at the outrageous interest rates that people in need have to pay to get loans.
Community groups contend that door-to-door loan sales are often followed by foreclosures.
Too often, borrowers who need quick cash end up trapped in loans they can't afford.
Groups that work in black neighborhoods around the country have contended that much of subprime lending is 'predatory lending.'
