REINSTATEMENT OF CONNECTICUT’S USURY LAWS


One of the greatest scourges of human society is the indenture and slavery created by debt. The immorality of usury, or high interest rates, has been acknowledged by a myriad of societies, ours included until the 1980s.

Corporate Finance and Bank greed, combined with weak legislators bought by corporate money, have helped lead tens of thousands of Connecticut families down the path of economic ruin and subservience.

By first making credit alluringly simple to obtain, and then by employing insidious Pavlovian marketing techniques designed to cause in the typical consumer a false or perceived desire to acquire unneeded and costly merchandise, predatory lenders have duped consumers into accruing large credit card balances. These balances bear enticingly long repayment periods, but at high-percentage interest rates which range from the mid-teens to as high as the mid-20s.

The typical consumer is not financially trained and does not realize that the path of credit card debt is a debilitating burden with balances that never decrease, and a literal slavery as all of the consumer’s labor and effort eventually goes to servicing the debt on the credit cards. In fact, the banks and credit card companies have created an entire class of indentured servants whose sole job is to pay interest on these balances. The high rates of interest ensure that the consumer can never break free. This is immoral, and it used to be criminal.

Seemingly easy credit dupes innocent consumers into wasteful consuming and spending. It feeds the Corporate serpent that spreads the venom of affluenza, creating false needs and desires, unhappiness and insecurity to all who are afflicted. The creation of false desires by Corporate marketers, combined with the enslaving techniques of the Financial Establishment, not only ensures that the substance and strength of the middle class will be wasted and consumed, but also ensures the eventual demise of the middle class in America, along with further concentration of wealth in the hands of the wealthy and the Corporatistas.

I would support the reinstatement of Usury laws on all lenders, limiting interest rates and related charges to a figure based on prevailing bond rates. I would introduce legislation to ban payday loans. We must encourage and promote thrift and smart choices for consumers—choices which are smart for the environment, the health and welfare of the consumer, and the health of the world economy.

Economic enslavement of a wide section of the population is anathema to a properly functioning society, and is creating undue hardship and pain to Connecticut families through deprivation, bankruptcy, family breakups, ill health and debilitating stress.