'Move Those Dollars': Anti-Usury Campaign Shares Principles With Move Your Money (VIDEO)

It may have sounded like music to the ears of Move Your Money proponents.

Chants of "move those dollars" and "move that money" rang out last week in the Hart Senate Office Building during an event for supporters of the Metro Industrial Areas Foundation. The group is spearheading a 10 Percent Is Enough campaign to fight usury, the practice of charging excessive interest rates and fees. They had reason to celebrate, with the announcement that Massachusetts would move nearly a quarter of a billion dollars away from banks that refused to cap their interest rates to meet a state guideline of 18%.

The Move Your Money campaign kicked off earlier this year on the Huffington Post, encouraging consumers to put their money in community banks rather than supporting too-big-to-fail institutions.

Both campaigns share key principles, including the power of consumers to "vote with their feet" and the idea that businesses -- particularly banks -- can be successful without taking advantage of their customers.

WATCH THE "MOVE THOSE DOLLARS" VIDEO:

Comments

[hope99]

02:58 PM on 04/20/2010

How about zero % intersts? 10% is too much. do you want to learn how can you have your governemnt give you loans at zero percnet for your home, business, education? only the cost of service fees. example a loan of 500k. can cost the borrower an average of $ 100.00 dollars permonth. Does this sounds fair? learn what is real usury free economy is. please read this book" How to strucuter a successful Economy" you will learn how to make economy and finanance with zero interest. this is the beginning. when you read this book you will learn how to analyze the economical system. you will know how much you are ripped of by banks. you will learn waht to do in order to free your self from slavery of the lenders. 6% interests on 500k loan is around $ 2300.oo per month. a person has to work all month to make this much after tax. This is hidden slavery.
The book cost only $ 25.00.
best wishes. yes for 0% interst.
Hope99

[Ravan A]

12:32 AM on 04/20/2010

I closed my BofA accounts last year, and moved to my local Credit Union. The only requirement for membership was residence in my city. They have two branches within two miles of my house.

They have debit cards, online banking, and plenty of ATMs - I can use the ones at 7-11s and CostCo for *free*. At BofA I could only use BofA machines. I don't pay *any* account maintenance fees, and my small savings account gets 0.15% over $50 and my *checking* gets 0.05% over $200. Just the lack of account maintenance fees saves me $15 per month.

If you haven't done it already, MOVE YOUR MONEY!

To find your local Credit Union, Google on "Credit Union" and your Zip Code.

[karen1p]

12:09 AM on 04/20/2010

Wells Fargo had no questions for me when I said, "Close it."

[KingofthePaupers]

10:44 PM on 04/19/2010

Jct: What a silly slogan. 10% usury still knocks 10/110 into foreclosure. It shows they have no idea how the mort-gage musical chairs death-gamble works. See http://johnturmel.com/biglie.htm

[AGO2]

04:09 PM on 04/19/2010

Credit unions are the only way to go. If you move to a smaller, community bank, it will only be a matter of time before one of the "too big to fail" banks buys up the small bank. So, go with credit unions which are established for their members.

[porsche996]

04:08 PM on 04/19/2010

Most people don't know that interest cannot be charged by banks in Islamic countries where Sharia dominates.

Buy a car...make monthly payments on the principal only. They make money by charging a fee for payment plans. Typical fee to buy a car? $1000-1500. Fee is charged up front...but can be added to the principal, it's all negotiated in the price and the fee can disappear too.

Typical Toyota dealer buys cars from Toyota at 65% retail price. Plenty of profit available just from selling the car, no need for usurious greed.

Credit cards have yearly fee's for membership based on size of desired credit line and approval....no interest fee's are allowed and the terms cannot be changed...mid stream, that would be usury.

[obelis kreative]

03:24 PM on 04/19/2010

According to the scriptures on usury:
If you lend money to any of My people who are poor among you, you shall not be like a moneylender to him; you shall not charge him interest. Exodus 22, v25.
'You shall not lend him your money for usury, nor lend him your food at a profit. Leviticus 25, v37.
One who increases his possessions by usury and extortion Gathers it for him who will pity the poor.
Proverbs 28, v8.
If he has exacted usury Or taken increase -- Shall he then live? He shall not live! If he has done any of these abominations, He shall surely die; His blood shall be upon him. Ezekiel 18 v13

[obelis kreative]

03:15 PM on 04/19/2010

I'm betting the baggers don't know that usury is forbidden to christians
in the holy bible, yessir.
Which is why in years gone by the aristocracy of Europe was constantly indebted to
the Jewish money lenders, as usury was permitted to the Jews.

[Sis3563]

09:08 PM on 04/19/2010

They only know what the preachers want them to know. This, however, is not in the neocon agenda, so not likely to be preached from the pulpit anytime soon.

The right to carry a smith and wesson, however....

[fuelie]

02:57 PM on 04/19/2010

18 percent is still usury, or legalized extortion by my definition.

I'm getting a measly 0.02 % on my checking account. I consider anything above 10% to be usury.

[ashcom]

02:46 PM on 04/19/2010

Yippee. It's about time the populous got serious about the immoral abuse of debt.

[espressobeans]

02:32 PM on 04/19/2010

Find a good credit union for most consumer banking. It's a no-brainer.

[Bitsko]

01:25 PM on 04/19/2010

Pat Robertson has been ranting against usury for decades. I am always leery of anything he supports.

[drkazmd65]

11:52 AM on 04/20/2010

Pat Robertson is right on this issue and this issue only,....

*shudder*

Can't believe I actually just typed "Pat Robertson is right".

[maslin]

01:19 PM on 04/19/2010

Not so sold on the usury angle.

[swtexas]

03:00 PM on 04/19/2010

What the hell do you mean "angle?"

[maslin]

04:15 PM on 04/19/2010

Let me put it this way:

I don't think that the primary thing that the big banks did or are doing wrong is that their interest rates are too high. I think there are MANY more important and dangerous things that they have been doing.

Indeed, I can see situations in which it might be just to charge high interest rates, and under which consumers might profit from access to credit even on those terms.

So, while I think that there are many things in need of reform about the current finance industry, consumer interest rates does not top my personal list.

[shoveler666]

01:15 PM on 04/19/2010

The dismantling of the usury laws is what touched off the rise of wall street....hedge funds, exotic "instruments" and "innovations." It's what heralded the total downfall of our manufacturing base, and enabled the rise of the economies such as India's. Because now, money makes money, directly. No one wants to invest in a real-world bricks & mortar factory, because why would you wait some years before getting a say 10% return on your money, when you can invest in derivatives and make 20% per year minimum? Only "fools" would invest their money in an enterprise which actually MAKES something. This is how money begets money so quickly, the rich get richer both quickly and dramatically, while we all stand around blinking and pointing fingers in many directions. It's the big secret of the financial crisis hidden in plain sight.... and this is one of the first times I have seen any mention of this concept in popular media, outside Harper's (and I don't really know how popular Harper's is, sadly).

[persimmon8]

02:25 PM on 04/19/2010

It is just a way for the shrewder humans to siphon money off from Main Street by gaming the system. It is pure and simple exploitation and we all need to wake up and make it illegal.

10% is already a high interest rate when many business's work on a profit of not much more than that. Even at 5% the money changers are making out.

We have a system now that is without accountability, responsibility and integrity. If allowed to continue ...this lawlessness will bring the whole thing down. The global class of corporate wealth that has gotten richer the past few years is one of the major things wrong with the world. We now have a world that is so out of balance because special entrenched power structures do not allow the necessary rightening and self-correcting. So we now have a political and economic system based on exploitation of the masses that is producing little that is good or productive and is profoundly degraded and getting worse with time.

[importer]

12:20 PM on 04/19/2010

A small anecdote...Last week I went to close my Wells-Fargo account. I had changed transfers earlier and was just making sure everything was at my new, local bank. The parking lot was empty at two in the afternoon except for employee vehicles. Three tellers stood waiting for me. When I said I wanted to close my account, they moved me to a "manager". He quickly closed the account in a business-like manner and never once asked why I might be closing it.

The bank was EMPTY except for me and I can't believe they weren't curious about an individual closing an account. There was a sense of discomfort in the whole place. If they had asked I would have told them that part of the reason was that my son had let his balance drop a little too low and was charged $40.00 each for several small purchases he made over two days with his debit card. The total he overdrew his account was less than $40.00, but he ended up owing them about $400. He routinely got emails from the bank for a variety of reasons, but the one indicating he had overdrawn his account went to spam, a pure coincidence I am sure.