At least one state legislator wants to revisit the issue.  From the story:

Crazy “alternative” newspaper in South Carolina continues jihad against payday lenders:

In January, Columbia City Council toughened up zoning restrictions on new payday lenders and title loan companies, banning them from opening within half a mile of each other and limiting the size of buildings they can occupy.

Ten months later, the law has had little net effect on the number of such businesses in the city. There were 42 lenders in town before the ordinance. After three closings and one opening, and with two applications pending, it seems likely that at year-end there will still be 42 lenders.

From the story: 

Under this South Carolina story about payday lending “alternatives” someone commented: 

What lala land are you in to think the average payday borrower has a 401K? Advances on credit cards? You have to have one! Credit Union or Community Bank? Why would you go to a payday lender if you had good credit and could get a loan at a bank or credit union? Man you are so naive it is really scary!

There’s a little action in South Carolina:

The House overrode vetoes Tuesday on a couple of high-profile  bills, including one that lawmakers hope will close a loophole in payday lending legislation approved last year.

The payday lending bill, H.3790, stipulates that a payday loan cannot be one for a period that is shorter than 120 days, unsecured, or requires presentment of a post-dated check.

After passing new regulations for the payday lending industry for the first time since it came into the state in 1998, lawmakers found that more than 100 previous payday lenders had switched business licenses to become short-term lenders, skirting the new regulations.

The new regulations stipulate borrowers can only have one loan a time, for up to $550, and was to create an electronic data base to track the loans.

This took the Payday Pundit by surprise this morning:

This young man is wise beyond his years:

Now this is where interest comes in  to play with regards to loans. The lender will be deprived of its money for whatever time agreed to in the loan contract. The lender will face opportunity costs by not investing that amount of money in other fields.

Now, thanks to the efforts of Austrian economists and their predecessors, the average person understands the importance of interest in loan making. There still remain many people like Warren Bolton who believe that payday lending is a never-ending spiral of debt that needs to be abolished by the government. Advocates fail to realize that they are actually hurting consumers.

Why are consumers turning to payday loans when they charge higher interest rates than a normal bank charges? Because they are marginal borrowers who take small loans out in an emergency but have a poor credit history. The loans are too risky for the normal banks, but payday lenders are willing to lend them money for a higher interest rate in order to make up for the risk.

Senator Corker and the “cheap shot.”

Christopher George over at the Spartanburg Spark is gleefully tossing around the terms “usury” and “predatory” with regard to payday lenders.  Someone needs to fact check–payday loans cost just enough to cover the cost of origination and are not wealth reducing.  They’re actually one of the most affordable forms of short term credit, but don’t let the facts interfere with a good story, Mr. George.

I don’t know how seriously to take this story.