Jeff Merkley Quotes

Groups that work in black neighborhoods around the country have contended that much of subprime lending is 'predatory lending.'

Community groups contend that door-to-door loan sales are often followed by foreclosures.

I've repeatedly seen unscrupulous lenders use every con in the book to charm and lie to homeowners. Lenders actually paid brokers a premium to put people in higher-priced loans with toxic features, such as adjustable rates and prepayment penalties.

I was absolutely astonished and could not believe my eyes at the outrageous interest rates that people in need have to pay to get loans.

Britain is a textbook case of how growing inequality leads to economic crisis. The years before the crash were marked by a sharp rise in remortgaging and the growth of 0 percent balance transfer credit cards. By 2008 the UK had the highest ratio of household debt to GDP of any major economy.

Citigroup, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase should not be permitted to charge consumers 25- to 30-percent interest on their credit cards, especially while these banks received over $4 trillion in loans from the Federal Reserve.

The moral angle to the foreclosure crisis - and, of course, in capitalism we're not supposed to be concerned with the moral stuff, but let's mention it anyway - shows a culture that is slowly giving in to a futuristic nightmare ideology of computerized greed and unchecked financial violence.

Usury once in control will wreck the nation.

Unfair servicing practices can worsen a family's already difficult economic situation, and the injury echoes from the family to the community and ultimately throughout the economy.

The bastards broke the People's back with their usury.... Let them die; the People will survive.

We believe that you know how pernicious the vice of usury is …. We command you all by this apostolic writing not to permit those who are known as usurers to clear themselves by any subterfuge or trick when they are charged with the crime.

We will continue to hold accountable financial institutions that, in the pursuit of their own financial interests, misuse public funds and cause harm to hard working Americans.

There were absolutely circumstances where Sallie Mae was working hand-in-hand with for-profit schools and other schools in offering and putting students into risky expensive subprime loans.

As I travel across Illinois and talk with people, and as others reach out to my office desperate for help, I am becoming convinced that, despite their rhetoric, many lenders have no interest in actually helping their customers.

Payday loans are but one of many financial techniques - from overdraft fees to student loans subsidizing for-profit colleges - specifically designed to pull money from the pockets of the poor. This problem generally goes unrecognized by policy makers.

Navient/Sallie Mae treated student loan borrowers unfairly from start to finish.

It's wrong to rob banks, yeah, but is it right for banks to loan people money, knowing full well they can't pay it back?

The old-fashioned idea is that responsibility falls upon those who borrow and lend. Money was not borrowed by campesinos, assembly plant workers, or slum-dwellers. The mass of the population gained little from borrowing, indeed often suffered grievously from its effects.

For many, the loan modification process has been a giant sham.

While payday loans are often the only source of credit for low-income Americans, these lenders are notorious for predatory practices that cause borrowers to fall deeper into debt.

Somebody has been cashing checks, and they've been bouncing back on us. And these people, the poor class of Negroes and the poor class of white people, they're getting tired of it.

We did not get any money from the early records. It was all taken by crooked managers. It is just a gangster's paradise.

International debts are like bills submitted to pay for the damage done on a wild party by one's grandfather. The payment seems to the debtor like pure loss, and when it is paid by one nation to another it seems the tribute by the conquered to the conqueror.

It’s going to put people into indentured servitude to the credit card companies.

I have ever been the enemy of banks. My zeal against these institutions was so warm … that I was derided as a maniac by the tribe of bank mongers who filch from the public their swindling and barren gains.