Ray Fishman writes a thought provoking article in Slate Magazine about the psychology of payday loans titled “400 Percent APR—Is That Good?“ What I like about the article is that it approaches payday loan abuse from the correct angle. Basically, he says that most people using payday loans do not understand the true cost of […]
Category Archives: Legislation
Payday Loan Reform Back in Illinois News
Republican Joan Krupa has nine days left in her term. She was beat by Democrat Aaron Schock in this year’s election. Ms. Krupa has introduced one single bill that has no chance of advancing. The bill wants to cap payday loan rates at 36%. Considering the fact that she will be out of Illinois politics […]
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Were the Ohio and Arizona payday campaigns too deceptive?
The question posed in this article: “Why do political consultants so often choose a deceptive argument when an honest one would do just as well?” Of course, hindsight is always 20/20, but there is something to be said about fanning the flames. You can’t say the campaign failed from a lack of effort. The PDL […]
The true origins of the word “usury”
Usury was originally a biblical term. This makes it a very powerful word for many people. The Jews coined the word usury and it meant lending money at any rate of interest to another Jew was condemned, but you could lend money to outsiders. This term being associated the bible is influencing people that are […]
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Illinois Pols Receive More From Payday Lenders Than Any Other State
Why do people autoatically assume that this is a bad thing? Providing campaign contributions is a good thing. There isn’t a single effetive organization out there that doesn’t donate to campaign funds. The industry is operating in good faith above the table. It looks like Illinois’ lenders are pretty organized compared with other states. Payday […]
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Canada’s working with lenders
Cananda is systematically placing caps on payday loans. The average cap is around 25%, which in my opinion is pretty reasonable for the lender. Nova Scotia is in the process of setting a cap and British Columbia will probably be next. Manitoba recently set it’s cap at 17%. Apparently, payday lending is a billion dollar […]
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Payday Lenders Get on the Arizona Ballot
Arizonans for Financial Reform received its qualifying notice Friday. In order to make it onto the ballot, they needed 153,365 signatures. The payday loan industry is trying to remove a drop dead date of 2010 for payday loan reform. I guess it’s in the voters hands now. I wonder how it will display on the […]
Also posted in Arizona