Bernie Sanders and AOC basically want to ban credit cardsby Tim Worstall
| May 28, 2019 01:57 PM
Rep. Alexandria Ocsaio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and 2020 candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have apparently decided to try to ban credit cards. Sure, that's not quite what Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders actually say (they just want to stop the swindlers profiting from excessive interest charges), but that's the effect of their plan. They argue that interest rates should be capped at 15%. There's a question about exceptions, but that's what they mean. If you cap the price of something below the cost of production, then that thing vanishes. No one makes it (who desires to make a loss?) and therefore no one can have it.
It's quite similar to the Venezuelan policy on food prices. Make chicken nice and cheap with a price ceiling so no one can have any. ...
None of this is remotely controversial among those who have been bothering to pay attention. But then there's people like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez. An example of their devotion to detail is the manner in which they talk about credit unions having had a 15% interest rate cap, including upon credit card balances, since 1980. Their knowledge of reality would be enhanced if they noted that it has actually been 18% since 1987. Knowing how the world works is a useful prelude, precursor, and even precondition to forming plans to change how it works.
But sighs about economic ignorance aren't enough here. They're calling this the Loan Shark Prevention Act, something it most definitely isn't. ...
More at Washington Examiner