New Orleans       You don’t hear the word “usury” bandied about much these days, although it is part of everyday life for many of us.  Simply put, usury is little more than predatory interest rates.  Politicians from the president on down are talking about interest rates these days.

Trump is employing extreme, extralegal measures to try and eliminate the independence of the Federal Reserve in order to get lower interest rates to suit his builder friends.  Lower interest rates would be great, but the way to get them so that they also protect jobs and the rest of the economy is not through dictate. On the other hand, a bipartisan bill sponsored by Vermont Democrat Bernie Sanders and Missouri Republican Josh Hawley that would cap credit card interest at 10%, which was also one of the campaign promises of candidate and now president Trump, would be a great idea.

ACORN has been on this battleground before more fifty years ago.  Arkansas was the last state in the union to hold onto a definition of usury at 10% on any measure.  Banks and others kept bringing on the ballot to try to repeal it every two years.  This was 10% cap on rate for any and all loans and credit matters.  We steadfastly fought to keep the ban until finally losing in 1982.  If you needed to establish credit and wanted a credit card before then, you had to get it from another out of state bank or one of the few businesses that could live with a 10% cap, like Sears.  It’s wonderful to see that, just maybe, what goes around then, can come around now, although to be honest, betting against the banks is likely a loser.

The editorialists at the Wall Street Journal not happy with any of this and always anti-labor to the core, also saw it as an opportunity to take a shot at the Teamsters Union and its president Sean O’Brien.  He had the temerity to host a podcast with Senator Hawley as a guest to tout the benefits of a 10% cap.  The Journal took a shot by going after the Union Plus credit card program that has been a product of Capital One for nearly 40 years now. The Teamsters, like most unions, offered their members the chance to apply for the card.  The Journal noted that the card charged customers rates between 25 and 27%, way over the proposed 10% and that Capital One hit customers with a $38 late charge that is way over the $8 recommended by another one of the Journal enemies, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.  They then tried to insinuate that O’Brien was guilty of hypocrisy because their LM reports indicated the Teamsters had received $5 million from Capital One since 2021.

Admittedly, there’s some “strange bedfellows” irony here.  A little know fact is that Capital One and this union privilege program funds a significant amount of many union’s organizing and other programs, as well as the AFL-CIO.  I’ve had a card that I got through SEIU some 40 years ago, even before Capital One acquired the program. I’m fighting them right now over a late charge and interest assessment after they sent my bill to the wrong address.

There are a lot of things that could be said and written about these partnerships between unions and various corporations, including banks, by channeling old school arguments about the marriage of labor and capital. But the natural consequence of making that argument would be that it would modulate labor’s opposition to lowering rates, which is exactly opposite of what is happening here with Sean O’Brien and the Teamsters, who are in fact advocating for a cap that would lower their percentages of the payments they receive from their members’ purchases.  The simple fact is that the Teamsters might make less than half of what they make now, which is hardly a gamechanger for them.

And, then there’s the fact, that I share.  Union members are going to get credit cards, if they can qualify, just as I did.  Even fighting a wrong charge, I’m happier knowing that, win or lose, having the card with Capital One means unions are at least getting a taste of these predatory rates and spending them to protect workers and organize new workplaces.  If I had the card with someone else, unions would be the poorer.

Why would I want that?  I definitely want a 10% cap for all my members and everyone else, regardless of the Journal’s attempt to confuse and distort the issue.  Even this late in the game, it would be nice to stop usury.