As Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Samuelson famously testified in 1969:
"The concern for the consumer and for the less affluent is well taken. But often it has been expressed in a form that has done the consumer more harm than good."
"For fifty years the Russell Sage Foundation and others have demonstrated that setting too low ceilings on small loan interest rates will result in drying up legitimate funds to the poor who need it most and will send them into the hands of the illegal loan sharks."
"History is replete with cases where loan sharks have lobbied in legislatures for unrealistic minimum rates, knowing that such meaningless ceilings would permit them to charge much higher rates."
