Free Lunch Read Online Free PDF Page A

to fish. Even if he has the means to obtain hook and line, of what good is a tool that one does not
know how to use? People with the skills to sustain themselves and improve their lot build our society. Denying the basic skills
needed to succeed, starting with a decent education so that one can comprehend more than simple instructions, is itself a form of
crime.
    Under what theory of morality do we grant those already in a superior economic or legal
position ever more power, especially when that power derives from rules in fine print that defy normal human
understanding?
    Consider one example, the business of lending money. Usury laws that
protected consumers against rapacious lenders existed until 1978. Now they are gone because of a Supreme Court decision. In
that case the high court warned Congress that it needed to enact new laws to protect borrowers. That warning was ignored in the
lucrative trade of selling access, if not votes. In place of rules that protect the vulnerable, the innumerate, and the foolish, our
government has set forth onerous new rules that reward those who prey on the poor. We used to prosecute loan sharks. Today a
television commercial featuring Gary Coleman urges people to borrow money at 99.25 percent interest, paying back almost $10,000
to borrow a quarter that much. These new rules help Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers and Citibank exploit the poor, the
unsophisticated, and the foolish. These lenders, or their fronts, can now charge rates and impose penalties that were illegal, even
criminal, a generation ago. These and other lenders engage in conduct that goes way beyond that of Michael Milken, the junk bond
promoter who made a fortune pushing risk onto corporate balance sheets the way addicts inject heroin into their veins. Milken was
vilified by many; not so the latest usurers.
    The result? In the past 25 years, one American
family in seven has sought refuge in federal bankruptcy court. They filed for relief from their debtors, not to immorally scam the
system, but because they were forced into it. Exhaustive research by Elizabeth Warren of Harvard Law School and her associates
into bankruptcy court filings has proven that the vast majority of people seek refuge from debtors after any two of three events
combine: divorce, job loss, or major medical problems.
    The response of our leaders to this is
instructive, for it shows how much of the wisdom of our founders we have lost. Two centuries ago, a sitting justice on the Supreme
Court, James Wilson, was jailed for not repaying money he had borrowed to invest with a fellow signatory to the Declaration of
Independence. Back then debtors could avoid imprisonment by securing all doors and windows, conducting business by means
of notes tossed in and out of the upper-floor windows. Those sent to gaol usually were
held in a place with few locks and keys, where you brought your own furnishings and food. Imagine what would happen today if a
brilliant jurist who filed bankruptcy were nominated for the Supreme Court.
    Today we do not
jail debtors. But under a new bankruptcy law written by credit card lenders, we deny some people the fresh start that the
constitutional provisions on bankruptcy were designed to ensure. Senators and representatives, after a decade of gathering up
campaign contributions from the lenders and their lobbyists, adopted rules that can leave the sick and the jobless at the mercy of
corporate Javerts pursuing Jean Valjeans until they die.
    In this same era we have turned what
were once denounced as vices into pastimes. Witness the explosive growth of casinos and other gambling. And now we even
subsidize some of the gambling halls with money that was promised to help the poor, the elderly, and the sick. In this way does
Donald Trump benefit from money intended for the least among us to burnish his image as a supposed billionaire.
    The checks and balances provided by oversight, inspection, investigation,