In article ,
"Tim" wrote:

Actually, you can blame the Supreme Court and the former Govener of South
Dakota for letting loose the reins on credit card interest rates. There was
an interesting program on this a couple of days ago on PBS (maybe
"Frontline"?).

Excellent show. Frontline is on my list of shows that I often arrange my
schedule around or tape.

Supreme Court ruled that the usury laws of the state where the person making
the credit decision was located ruled. So if an Ohio employee of a New York
bank makes the decision to grant credit to a customer in California, Ohio
law rules. Then SoDak's govenor, in exchange for the promise of jobs from
Citibank and other big banks, led the charge to repeal SoDak's usury laws
that capped interest rates on credit cards. Banks moved their credit card
ops to SoDak and other states soon followed in repealing usury laws.

Yeah and at the end he said that although the increase in S. Dakota's
economy was a great step forward, he felt uneasy with the realization
that he helped release the beast on consumers who are least likely able
to afford the tactics.

BTW, did anyone believe the head of the Comptroller of the Currency vs.
the SF district attorney concerning Providian? Or that guy who's the
head of the lobby organization for the credit card industry? He
certainly looked uncomfortable with the line of questions.

--
Owen Lowe and his Fly-by-Night Copper Company
____

"Sure we'll have fascism in America, but it'll come disguised
as 100% Americanism." -- Huey P. Long