Payday Pundit

I don’t know what it is with the Wall Street Journal, but they seem to have it in for the payday lending industry.   An article today about Rent-A-Center says the company asked a charity it supports not to endorse an effort to ban payday loans.  Rent-A-Center put out this reply.  
The Wall Street Journal wrongly reported this morning that Rent-A-Center […]

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Interesting discussion on a the Volokh Conspiracy blog prompted by a column, “In Defense of Usury” in the Wall Street Journal by Dean Karlan and Jonathan Zinman. 

Several of the commenters raised the challenge that nothwithstanding the authors’ conclusions, very high interest rates are still “immoral” and should be banned. But I don’t really follow the logic of the […]

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the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”  
In today’s Wall Street Journal, a story begins: 
      “Concerned that “payday lenders” and other high-interest storefront operations are improperly capturing Social Security direct-deposit payments from the elderly and disabled, the Social Security Administration said it would likely change how it delivers some benefits.” 
Wait a second.  The […]

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The Wall Street Journal offers advice for young adults needing a short-term loan:  get a loan from the bank of Mom and Dad.   No Plan B is suggested if Mom and Dad don’t have the cash.   

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George McGovern’s column in the WSJ advocating for freedom of choice on everything from healthcare to payday loans has prompted a lively debate in the blogosphere.  
Check out  http://tailrank.com/5344099/Freedom-Means-Responsibility for all of the latest discussions from all sides of the aisle.  
“Since leaving office I’ve written about public policy from a new perspective: outside looking in. I’ve […]

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Ankle Biting Pundits, a well-known conservative blog, has highlighted today’s McGovern piece in the Wall Street Journal.   Another respected blog, EconLog also posted comments on this insightful op-ed.

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Another interesting comment made by Yunus in the Journal article was his belief that charity is not the best alternative to microloans. Yunus believes that charity cannot ever match a profit making industry for efficiency and service.
Around the country, as lawmakers and payday lending critics call for a ban on payday lending, maybe they should rethink their attitude that charity […]

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Saturday’s Wall Street Journal had a very interesting article on Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, for his company which offers small loans (known as microcredit) to women in third world countries.  Without Yunus, these women would not have been able to get a loan from the traditional third world lenders who […]

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Former Democratic presidential candidate and South Dakota Senator George McGovern has an outstanding piece in Friday’s Wall Street Journal on the problems with “economic paternalism,” in the effort to ban payday advances.  Here are a few choice quotes:

“Payday lending bans simply push low-income borrowers into less pleasant options, including increased rates of bankruptcy. Net result: […]

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The February 12th front-page Wall Street Journal story by Ellen E. Schultz and Theo Francis, “Social Insecurity:  High-Interest Lenders Tap Elderly & Disabled” confuses payday lenders with other types of small loan services: primarily installment and catalog lenders. 
The article describes loan practices that are NOT conducted by payday lenders.
Major errors in the WSJ article:

The article […]

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