Nick Anderson for November 28, 2012

Well done. Legalized loan sharking. Vinnie on the corner would give you better terms.

Oh, while payday loans are outrageous, the era of “Reaganomics” made all banking and “investment” operations no better, just legalized Mafia.

It is odd how what is allowed when it comes to separating the gullible (or vulnerable) from their money. In Germany there was recently a big uproar over how much some banks were charging customers when their accounts (what in the U.S. would be a “checking account”) are overdrawn. The interest rates they were complaining about were laughably low by normal bank’s U.S. standards and without any up-front “transaction fee”..On the other hand there are legal gambling establishments on what seems like every corner (and in between) in lower income neighborhoods.

It really angers me to see how many small businesses have closed and been replaced with these “Payday Loan” shops. Family restaurants, electrical shops, convenience stores, etc have been replaced with these shops that appeal to the most desperate and vulnerable in our society. I have written to my local and state politicians explaining why I feel these places do more harm than good, but no one has even sent me back a form letter in reply. I guess they have a strong lobby in my state.The cartoon shows a man about to be caught by a rat trap, but the rats are the business owners who staff these shops with people who are just slightly less desperate for a job than the people to who they give “loans.”This cartoon shows a sad symptom afflicting our states and I hope states will at least regulate these people aggressively.Respectfully,C.

I’m surprised nobody mentioned credit cards

Our republican governor in Virginia approved the practice. What a sweetie. Of course he also provided $8M to the Washington Redskins to practice in Virginia but said the state couldn’t afford Medicaid for its senior citizens. Good thing he can only serve a single term

A certain business with a blue and yellow sign has an interest rate of 400% but I think some of the others are higher.

Here in Virginia, the legislators who voted not to force reasonable maximum interest rates on payday-loan companies cited two reasons for not wanting to “compromise” the practice: one is that it might be the only available money, (and we wouldn’t want to take away a person’s chance to owe much, much more than he borrows), and the other is that we might lose those jobs to other states. See if you can guess which political party those people belong to.

And to elaborate on Ennui-Rudy’s post: be ready. Governor McDonnell is likely to run for president in 2016. Keep in mind that this is a person who ran on relieving transportation issues, and did not introduce any plan until the last year of his term. Now he is advocating for tolls on interstates as his only solution. Also note that he professes a “surplus” every year, and has accomplished this by reducing legally-required input into the state teacher’s retirement fund, and having them pay the difference with their new raise, which is coincidentally just enough to pay what the state did not. Also, he has instituted a policy where localities are billed for items that the state has decided it didn’t want to pay for. Follow the queen, round and round she goes…….you have been warned.

yes do away with payday loans the what? live in your broken down car?

The big banks are just preditors now, their intentions are very clear. Also still too big to fail. The financial industry is helping to kill the USA, banks hurt their customers and the country.

@wbr:

If a person takes out a payday loan for $100, and two weeks later owes $350, will he end up with a car to sleep in?

If you make enough to actually save enough for your old age, then you should indeed be very grateful and stop complaining all the time. And you should even be happy that you can help those much worse off than you are. We like to call ourselves a Christian nation, and that gratitude is just exactly how Christ would have you feel.

But, if you are like at least 50% of all Americans that make enough to just get by on without putting anything away, then social security is a true Godsend and you should be grateful that you are paying into it for at least some comfort in your own old age!!

‘Every payday I give an enormous ‘loan’ to the government through the FICA tax. If I live long enough, they might pay me back.’-Remember, that’s NOT income tax. Willard pays the same max amount you do — except he donates those pesky wage thingies to charity. Republicans have never had a problem raising payroll taxes.-Also, if you live about 7 or 8 years beyond retirement, you’ll get back all you’ve paid in plus a reasonable interest return. -If you’re going to argue with those numbers, please show your math.

HEY HEY HEY! Don’t be insulting Guido by comparing him to a Payday Loan place. Guido at least has some morals.

As for Ima’s comment about not writing cheques you can’t afford. That just convinces me that he’s never been outside of mamma’s basement. There’s just some things you have to pay for (like medical treatment) and if you don’t have the money since you’ve been off work from being sick and can barely scrape by in the first place, you’re pretty much hooped.

But I guess that’s God’s punishment and I should just accept homelessness as the holy wrath that I sorely deserve.

you may live to the day when Social Security pay back part of what you pay into, but not if the government turns it over to private “investors”.

sounds like the virginia governor is someone to not want in the white house!

Liberals cannot understand the concept of personal responsibility or a budget. Hence it must be evil to take away a loan shark that screws them with high interest rates.

Sadly, you wouldn’t be able to figure it out if I explained it to you for 20 years.-I didn’t think you could do math. Or research.

Hello Howgozit,I hope the holidayze are treating you well.You are right, I wrote to W. Bush about the payday loan sharks but haven’t sent one to Obama. I’ll correct that.I am pleased to see my fellow Virginians stepping up to complain about the damage being done by these business, but I was not aware of IPlayOneOnTV’s statement on how Gov. McDonnell, a graduate of Pat Robertson’s Regent University, was paying for our state’s “surpluses”. With two nieces who have started their working careers as teachers, I find this raid on Teacher pension funds to be vulgar. This is the same thing that has been done since 1998 when lobbyists convinced Congress to let pension fund managers "gamble’ with pension funds. Retirees suffer and CEO’s give themselves bonuses. I didn’t help elect Scott Rigell, a republican, but I did write to him as well.Respectively,C.

Well, if she lives long enough for that, she’ll get back all the FICA tax that she and her employers put in, plus interest, plus a lot more. That’s why they call it an entitlement.-I’m guessing that she is not an accountant.

Both Ima and Tigger both fail to understand my last comment. Why am I not surprised?