Grass Roots Groups: Big Banks are quietly profiting from payday lending

A group called Grass Roots Organizing (GRO) held a rally in front of the Bank of America Building in downtown St. Louis, announcing that big banks are quietly financing the biggest payday lending companies. The announcement was based on a report issued by National People's Action out of Chicago. I videotaped portions of the rally, which was led by an energized woman named Robin Acree, Executive Director of GRO. When you understand how payday lenders operate (and subvert the political process), you'll also understand why it takes some spunk to stand up to the lenders and to expose these shady dealings. [Note: Acree's microphone had malfunctioned just prior to this segment--she was still carrying it, but it wasn't working]. After seeing a bit of Acree's presentation, you'll see a two-minute confession by Graham McCaulley, who formerly worked at a payday lender and offers a laundry list of the unscrupulous practices he saw first hand. Consider that these two presentations constitute a formidable indictment of big banks. Here's an excerpt from the NPA document handed out at the St. Louis Rally:

Major payday loan companies receive their funding from the largest national banks . . . Major banks provide over $1.5 Billion in credit available to fund major payday lending companies . . . The major banks funding payday lending include Wells Fargo, Bank of America, U.S. Bank, JP Morgan Bank, and National City (PNC Financial Services Group) . . . Our analysis find that the major banks indirectly fund approximately 450,000 payday loans per year totaling $16.4 Billion in short-term payday loans . . . Major banks access credit from the Federal Reserve discount window at 0.5% or less, these banks extend an estimated $1.5 Billion annually to eight major payday lending companies, who in turn use this credit to issue millions of payday loans to consumers every year at average rates of 400% APR.

For a lot more information about 400% payday loans and why they should be outlawed, see this earlier post, which includes a powerful video of St. Louis attorney John Campbell (John and I work together as consumer lawyers at the Simon Law Firm). And isn't it incredible that it is almost impossible to convince state legislators to cap consumer loans at the substantial rate of 36%? Sad but true.

Continue ReadingGrass Roots Groups: Big Banks are quietly profiting from payday lending

More stuff = lower self-esteem

The Daily Galaxy reports on the inverse relationship between self-esteem and materialism:

Researchers have found that low self-esteem and materialism are not just a correlation, but also a causal relationship where low self esteem increases materialism, and materialism can also create low self-esteem. The also found that as self esteem increases, materialism decreases. . . . The paradox that findings such as these bring up, is that consumerism is good for the economy but bad for the individual.
The study announcing this finding was by Lan Nguyen Chaplin (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) and Deborah Roedder John (University of Minnesota), to appear in the Journal of Consumer Research.

Continue ReadingMore stuff = lower self-esteem

Numerous American Muslim clerics guilty of sexually abusing children.

Just imagine how incensed most Americans would be if they saw the above (untrue) headline on the front page of their daily papers. Do you have any doubt that they would quickly investigate and prosecute the offenders, then throw them into prison? How amazing that when we substitute "Catholic" for "Muslim," so many Americans forgive the rapists and lean upon their victims. This is a paraphrase of a line used by Christopher Hitchens in an Slate article where he describes the unwieldy Belgian "problem" of the Catholic church. Well, the Belgian criminal justice system is now starting to crack down and the Catholic clergy continues to condemn this intervention of government, all the while stifling the investigations by attempting to withhold the evidence. The Catholic clergy would much rather be left alone, of course, but Hitchens sees this new development--that of "earthly justice"--to be an important and necessary step. If only this interest in those who have obstructed justice would happen with vigor everywhere. I would offer this suggestion: Dress up the American Catholic clergy as though they were Muslim clergy--tell people that they were Muslim sexual predators rather than Catholic sexual predators--and then watch the American media and justice system go at the offenders like attack dogs. We might even see some action aimed at those numerous accomplices who have worked so hard to cover up the evidence. Hell, we might even see Americans tear down Catholic churches that were within 10 miles of ground zero, if only we could somehow convince Americans that the Catholic clerics were disguised Muslims.

Continue ReadingNumerous American Muslim clerics guilty of sexually abusing children.