Al Jazeera Discovers Populism, Ignores Credit Card Lobby
Al Jazeera dutifully delivers an article on Donald Trump's proposal to cap credit card interest rates at 10%, asking if such a cap would 'work.' The piece leans on 'experts' warning of 'unintended consequences,' like reduced access to credit for some consumers. Conveniently, it glosses over the very intended consequences of current usurious rates: record profits for lenders and crippling debt for
millions of working families. This narrative neatly sidesteps acknowledging that for decades, financial institutions have successfully lobbied to eliminate meaningful caps, allowing average rates to hover around 20-30%. One might charitably ask: 'Unintended consequences' for whom, exactly? The banking lobby, which pours millions into politicians' campaigns (like the American Bankers Association’s
$2.5 million in 2022, according to OpenSecrets.org), certainly intends for profits to remain untrammeled. The real 'unintended consequence' for media narratives like this one is that they inadvertently highlight how far the Overton window has shifted, where a basic consumer protection measure becomes a radical, potentially harmful idea, rather than a corrective to decades of corporate capture.