Arthur Ham versus “Arthur Ham”
August 29, 2008 | industry | Comments (0)For those of the Payday Pundit’s readers who check out the “comments” section, you’ll find numerous comments from payday lending critic “Arthur Ham,” a pseudonym for some CRL-type activist. In the essay, “The History of Credit” there’s a section on the real Arthur Ham:
It is interesting to read about the history of Arthur Ham, a graduate student of Columbia University, who, in the early 1900s, studied small-loan lenders in detail.
Ham first concluded that finance companies of the day were causing a hardship on workers by charging high rates of interest.
However, after he led the campaign to pass usury laws to limit the amount of interest that could be charged, Ham completely reversed his position.
He originally felt, as do many people then and today, that high interest rates were an indication of shameless profit. However, as he became better acquainted with the loan industry, he discovered how interest rates for these loans were determined and why they were necessary.
Since the new lower, “protective” interest rates enacted were too low for small finance companies and philanthropic lenders to take on the risk of low-dollar borrowers, people had no place to turn for these small loans. After realizing what was happening, Ham moderated his views and worked with lender organizations to find a way for small finance companies to exist while eliminating the undesirable “loan shark” element.
Sounds like Arthur Ham would have supported payday loans.
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