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srothstein wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 8:10 pm
WARNING: I may very well be wrong because it sounds ridiculous to me that a 26 week t-bill would pay 16%. There is no way I thought it was that high.

Steve, you are misreading the decimal point on the 26 week t-bill rates. The current rates are not in the 16% to 19% range, but they are instead in the 0.16% to 0.19% range -- much less than 1%. So using the t-bill rate doesn't get the allowable interest rate above the general 10% rate, and 36% would definitely be usurious under Texas law.

philip964 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 4:20 pm Texas used to have usury laws.

If I remember correctly, the Republicans took over the govt after a long absence a while back and I think that was the first thing that was passed, repealing usury laws.

The applicable usury law is usually determined under the state law applicable to a contract, which is usually the state in which the party who drafted the contract is located. That is why so many bank credit card issuers are located in South Dakota, which allows much higher interest rates than under the usury laws of Texas and other states.

I believe that Daniel Defense is located in Georgia and is therefore not a Texas company, so Texas usury laws would not apply to them.

If I recall, modernization of the Texas usury laws probably took place in the 1980's, after the disastrous presidency of Jimmy Carter, when inflation and sky-rocketing interest rates in the late 1970's made it impossible for banks and S&L's to make loans which complied with Texas usury laws. In 1980, Congress passed federal legislation preempting state usury laws then in effect for loans made by many financial institutions. Texas laws were updated to allow state chartered financial institutions to engage in activities which federally chartered institutions could engage in.

We have had Republican governors in Texas since 1987 (except for 4 years of Ann Richards).