Jesse Blocher, a doctoral student in finance at UNC-Chapel Hill, has worked with Durham CAN in the past on improving school facilities but said he can’t support the usury campaign.
“We as the church would better spend our time trying to help people get out of debt rather than trying to take on Bank of America,” he said.
Mount Level is offering financial counseling as part of the campaign, but Broadway said the main purpose is to influence banks and legislators.
Blocher said banks won’t lend unless they can make a profit above what they charge each other in interest. A cap on interest rates would simply price higher-risk borrowers, who tend to be poor, out of the credit-card market, he said.
So, the folks quoted in the article say that credit card interest should be capped at 10%, citing the principle of the tithe. I wonder if the same people would be O.K. with capping government taxes on people at 10%? To be logically consistent they should agree with this.