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  • From: Tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] The Usury Business, How To Avoid Going To Jail
  • Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 11:42:12 -0700

clanSkeen wrote:


tvoivozhd---well, not really. You do not know what they will do to you
because it is a unilateral contract---something that should be outlawed
in any responsible society.


Or looking at it another way, something no prudent person would enter into.


tvoivozhd---one explanation which fits you and me, but a better explanation which fits the hoi polloi without a legal or business background (the vast majority), is prudence has little to do with it---in the real world that rarity the "fully infomed consumer" has to be fully informed of what constitutes a unilateral contract and its consequences to make even a quasi-intelligent decision. Hell, if we are to credit reports on K-12 education, most of the population can't read, can't write, much less comprehend the difference between a unilateral and a bilateral contract. They have not and never will sit in a class on contract law where they might learn the distinction.
Usury Laws used to protect these people, and worked just fine. The Banking Industry and their Lobbyists handing out bribes to politicians stripped away this common sense protection.

Homestead Exemption laws have in the past protected these dumb consumers from losing their homes---in my opinion a damned good thing, I would a hell of a lot rather see stupid or predatory lenders lose a few bucks than families put on the streets, in overccrowded Salvation Army shelters, or on welfare rolls.

In Wisconsin when I first went into business, uniliateral contracts were unenforceable as against Public Policy---like the Yellow Dog labor contracts, contracts with minors et. al. Bankruptcy Laws had similar exemptions---passed and court-enforced as a means of permitting debtors to retain sufficient assets to enable them to climb out of what otherwise would be an economic grave and resume their place as a productive cog in the GDP wheel.

All of the above are under severe and continual assault, one by one vanishing from sight, marked off the list for extinction by the Banking Industry plus the Presidents and Congressmen they rent. Senator Grassley perennially introduces legislation to strip jobless and ill bankrupts of any means of recovery (except his factory farm constituents with three to five million dollar exemptions). With the flood of unemployed bankrupts from manufacturing states, he has been afraid of re-introducing his punitive legislation this year---it is a temporary respite, he never gives up any more than Bush does in their service to the Banking Industry.


2) Knowing that this is the nature of the beast, don't enter into any
agreements with them. We have a couple of actual local banks here, I know
everyone hasn't. I don't use credit but shady deals would get around and
ruin the bank so by all accounts they don't engage in them.


tvoivozhd---shady deals will ruin a small bank, but grossly increase the profits of big banks due to Bush prohibiting any State control of those shady deals---and of course the corollary, a BushBribe of $25,000, 000 this year alone guarantees no Federal remedial legislation.





I'll stand corrected on this if needs be, Tvo, but my understanding is that
the current situation is like this: States can set regulations making
certain types of contracts illegal even if both parties enter into them with
full knowledge and consent. For example, a loan contract with a minor
cannot be enforced. In most states if an employer gets you to sign an
agreement that you will not testify against them in court, it is not binding
and cannot be enforced.

tvoivozhd---Yes, for a hundred years States have regulated contracts, subject to a couple of limitations, the Full Faith And Credit obligation to recognize each others contracts in State Courts and the Federal Uniform Commercial Code There are some exemptions to the former, none for the latter. And up until a few months ago no one except a wildly corrupt current President would have dreamt of interfering with States right to regulate or prohibit abusive credit card contracts.
Not now---Bush has issued regulations specifically prohibiting States from


Giving the states the right to quell this is a good idea, and no mistake.


States have and always have had the right to quell this---it has been taken away by Bush.

.



The unilateral contract and contract law in general has been
under State jurisdiction. It should remain there and would except for
the fact Bush got $25,000,000 in bribes this year from MBNA, Chase
Manhattan and the other members of the Credit Card Mafia.



You know how, Tvo, you are fond of saying that we don't live in the past and
the tools and situations we have in 2004 are what we have and we must make
wise use of them (to that effect)?? Credit cards USED TO be a legitimate
contract. They aren't any more, they are a blatant scam. No one in their
right mind would look over the provisions that they DO state and ever sign
the thing.


tvoivozhd---we can't live in the past. The future can be altered however---and the unilateral contract abolished as it was in mid-1940's. Can't do that as long as Bush remains in office and I doubt that Kerry will do anything about it either.



Would you not say it is so that if the credit card industry were tightly
regulated, all the fraud and usury squeezed out of it, that a good portion
of the people decrying how badly they are ripped off by same would find that
they couldn't get a credit card at all?

James


tvoivozhd---Hell no, credit cards came into being so banks could eliminate their loan officers and place the cost of pre-examined credit and the minor cost of the loan transaction on the bank customer instead of on the bank payroll..

Like every other business, banks are in business of making money---(literally), the only business in the U.S. where they can legally sell what they do not own, and have a multiplication factor of about five in a transaction which would put any other business owner in jail for twenty years.

Credit cards are the best means of making money that banks have ever encountered. They absolutely will never give them up, and will readily, if reluctantly accommodate to any and all State regulation designed to rein them in.






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