Consumer Debt and Usery : A New Rationale for Usury

Usury is society's oldest continuous form of commercial regulation. It controls a multiplicity of individual transactions, each of relatively small significance. For example, the American Banker's Association estimates that there are about 5,300 credit card transactions per minute are $40.00 per transaction. The aggregate of these transactions is of major significance to society itself in promoting economic development and controlling the negative consequences of debt. This article examines usury as a macroeconomic tool accommodating individual appetites for consumer indebtedness and society's need for economic development. Usury laws are not simply the means of protecting individuals from indebtedness, or of protecting the individual consumer's interest, but they are also a “means of economic policy employed in fighting inflation". In addition, this paper urges reconsideration of usury laws as a means of protecting society from the negative effects of enormous consumer indebtedness