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Posts Tagged “
Usury
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payday loans
usury
Arkansas Attorney General To Payday Lenders: Shut Down Or I'll See You In Court
On March 18, Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel sent letters to 156 payday lenders, ordering them to stop issuing new loans and void any current and past due loans or face legal action. McDaniel charges that the lenders are violating Arkansas's constitutional prohibition against usurious interest rates. More »
evil
Payday Lenders Convince Elderly To Assign Social Security Checks To Them, Hand Back Allowances
This writer is quickly growing convinced that payday lenders are the modern version of indentured servitude, trapping consumers in cycles of debt that simply cannot be broken in their lifetimes. The Wall Street Journal published a story last week about payday lenders who make loans to the elderly and effectively take over their Social Security or disability payments, handing back whatever remains after they take their cut. Though it sounds like it should be illegal, payday loan companies are partnering with banks to pull this off.More »
usury
New Hampshire Gives Payday Lenders The Boot
New Hampshire will become the latest state to keep payday lenders from gouging their patrons. A measure passed by the legislature will cap interest rates on payday loans at 36%, a drastic change for an industry used to bludgeoning underbanked consumers with interest rates exceeding 500%. Payday borrowers spend an average of $793 trying to repay a $325 loan. Let's see how the economic leeches spin this as a loss for consumers. More »
usury
Study Says Payday Lenders More Prevalent In Areas Of High Christian Conservative Power
A law professor and associate professor of geography set out to create the most comprehensive map of U.S. payday lenders to date. What they found, to their surprise, was "a surprising relationship between populations of Christian conservatives and the proliferation of payday lenders." And it's not a side effect of a poor population that happens to be Christian, according to the authors: "Our research showed that the correlation between payday lenders and the political power of conservative Christians was stronger than the correlation between payday lenders and the proportion of a population living below the poverty line." More »
New legislation in Colorado threatens to put a cap on payday lending.
"It took Linda Medlock four years and $8,000 to pay off the $500 she borrowed from a payday lender to make her mortgage payment," says the Denver Post.
Boo, payday lending. Boooo.[Denver Post] (Photo:taberandrew)
payday loans
Usury Is Good For You
Usury is good for you. That's the lesson from an article in today's WSJ using empirical evidence to defend the practice of charging 200% interest rates.
A randomly selected pool of Latin America borrowers who were just below the normal level of credit worthiness were approved for a 200% 4-month installment loan. A control group was denied based on normal policies. Tracked over the next two years, the group with the high-interest loan made more money, went less hungry, had better credit scores, and were happier than their control group. They also had higher default rates.
More »
usury
Payday Loans Die In DC
In a victory for consumers, Washington D.C. effectively outlawed payday lending today with the passage of the Payday Loan Consumer Protection Act capping lending interest rates at 24%. More »
politics
Support The Credit Card Act Of 2007
The Credit CARD Act Of 2007 is a bill currently before Congress aiming to end some of the credit card industry's anti-consumer practices. Among H. R. 1461's proposals: More »
usury
Credit Cards Fees Doubled Over Ten Years
Since 1994, credit card late and overlimit fees have more than doubled. We're no economist, but that doesn't seem to keep pace with inflation. More »
npr
Payday Lenders Target Poor New Mexicans
NPR's got a nice little story on payday loans in New Mexico. More »
payday
Almost As Many PayDay Loan Centers As There Are McDonalds
There's almost as many PayDay Loan Centers in America as there are McDonald's. More »
payday
Do PayDay Loan Centers Target Minorities?
Do payday loan centers target minorities? If there's any doubt in your mind, consider an instructional course offered by the Community Financial Services Association of America (CFSA,) a payday loan trade group. The couse is titled, "Building Community Support: Strategies for Business Survival." More »
payday loans
Do PayDay Loan Centers Target The Poor?
According to Virginia Delegate Jennifer L. McClellan, "There are over two payday lending stores for every McDonalds in Virginia and three for every Starbucks." More »
usury
The Geography of Usury
If you've ever wondered why your credit card bills are postmarked in Utah, Delaware, Virginia, or South Dakota, and why your interest rates are higher than you think should be legal, the map above might help. More »
debt
UPDATE: Getting Out of Credit Card Debt
T'is a pity for the flower of youth to be wrinkled by the radioactive belch of credit card debt. Yesterday, we asked the readers about how college boy L.S. should get out of his $2150 in credit card debt set at exorbitant rates and here's what we think he should do. More »
maxed out
Maxed Out Movie Details America's Pit of Debt
- "...back in the '60s and '70s ... a lot of bankers objected to credit cards and said they were not going to give consumers the noose from which to hang themselves—that was immoral, that was unethical ... They understood that people would abuse credit if given too much of it, and the banker had to fill this role of regulator. That philosophy doesn't exist any more."
