As a result, private companies have been forced to borrow from underground finance companies at often usurious interest rates.

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Then the card companies can hit them up for usurious interest.

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The market for unsecured bonds has been closed for weeks, leaving banks with no option but to sell covered bonds at usurious interest rates that will challenge their profitability.

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In In re Bonham, a chapter 7 trustee brought numerous actions to avoid transfers made to investors of a failed Ponzi scheme, including seeking to recover double the usurious interest paid to those victims. 229 B.

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Indeed, as the Sam's Club example amply proves, if market rates of interest rise to usurious levels and bank lending becomes scarce, this serves as a market signal for businesses outside the traditional banking system that their entrance into finance will be rewarded.

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Today, millions of perfectly reputable and otherwise rational people charge purchases at interest rates that would be usurious if consumer credit were not exempted from laws preventing people with money from preying on people in need.

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Further, the California usury law is one of the strictest of its kind in the nation, with any annual interest rate exceeding 10% deemed usurious.

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The Bank of England and the development of government bonds enabled the British government to borrow prodigious sums of money at low interest rates, in contrast with the usurious rates the French monarchy had to pay.

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So how can lawyers borrow money at usurious rates and still prosecute a case fairly and solely in the interest of their clients?

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