Payday loan opponents struggle to get a fair hearing

Payday loans are high-interest short-term unsecured small loans that borrowers promise to repay out of their next paycheck, typically two weeks later. Interest rates are typically 300% to 500% per annum, many multiples higher than the exorbitant rates charged by banks on their credit cards. A typical payday borrower takes out payday loans to pay utility bills, to buy a child’s birthday present or to pay for a car repair. Even though payday loans are dangerous financial products, they are nonetheless tempting to people who are financially stressed. The growth of payday lenders in the last decade has been mind-boggling. In many states there are more payday lenders than there are McDonald’s restaurants. In Missouri Payday lenders are even allowed to set up shops in nursing homes. Missouri’s payday lenders are ferociously fighting a proposed new law that would put some sanity into a system that is often financially ruinous for the poor and working poor. Payday lenders claim that the caps of the proposed new law would put them out of business. Their argument is laughable and their legislative strategy is reprehensible. Exhibit A is the strategy I witnessed Thursday night, February 18, 2010. On that night, Missouri State Senator Joe Keaveny and State Representative Mary Still jointly held a public hearing at the Carpenter Branch Library in the City of St. Louis City to discuss two identical bills (SB 811 and HB 1508) that would temper the excesses of the payday loan industry in Missouri. Instead of respecting free and open debate and discussion regarding these bills, payday lenders worked hard to shut down meaningful debate by intentionally packing the legislative hearing room with their employees, thereby guaranteeing that A) the presenters and media saw an audience that seemed to favor payday lenders and B) many concerned citizens were excluded from the meeting. As discussed further down in this post, payday lenders are also responsible for flooding the State Capitol with lobbyists and corrupting amounts of money.carpenter-branch-library When I arrived at 7:00 pm, the scheduled starting time, I was refused entry to the meeting room. Instead, I was directed to join about 15 other concerned citizens who had been barred from the meeting room. There simply wasn’t room for us. But then who were those 100 people who had been allowed to attend the meeting? I eventually learned that almost all of them were employees of payday lenders; their employers had arranged for them to pack the room by arriving en masse at 6 pm. Many of the people excluded from the meeting were eventually allowed to trickle into the meeting, but only aspayday-employees other people trickled out. I was finally allowed into the meeting at 8 pm, which allowed me to catch the final 30 minutes. In the photo below, almost all of the people plopped into the chairs were payday lender employees (the people standing in the back were concerned citizens). This shameful tactic of filling up the meeting room with biased employees has certainly been used before.

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Why is non-belief flourishing?

A recent Pew study shows that non-belief is growing among Americans. Freelance researcher Gregory S. Paul has proposed a mechanism for this growth of non-belief. For instance, in 2009, he published on this topic in Evolutionary Psychology. More recently, in the February, 2010 edition of Science (available online only to subscribers), Paul gives a succinct summary of this proposed mechanism to explain declining popularity of religion in prosperous countries:

In modern nations, non-religion and the acceptance of evolution become popular when the middle-class majority feels sufficiently secure and safe, thanks to low income inequality, universal health care, job and retirement security, and lower rates of legal crime; this has occurred to greater and lesser degrees in most first-world countries, from Japan to Scandinavia. Religion thrives when the majority seek the aid and protection of supernatural powers because they are impoverished, is in third- and second-world countries or, in the case of the United States (the most religious and creationist first-world country), because a majority of Americans fear losing their middle-class status as a result of limited government support, high levels of social pathology, and intense economic come petition and income disparity. Prosperous modernity is proving to be the nemesis of religion.

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Nanny’s Gone Wild

This may actually be more about problems in cross cultural communication. But it does appear to be a case of runaway Nanny-State-ism. I have come to accept with a chuckle the warning labels on toasters and VCR's to not use them in the bath or shower. I'm sure they are slippery when wet, and one might drop them on ones foot. This is a problem among electrocuted zombies, I'm sure. But what am I to make of the warning on this product? Warning on a chest of drawers I need ANSI-Approved eye protection to open a drawer? Did an actual lawyer sign off on this? This box is actually lower quality than a similar one that I'd bought at Target a couple of years earlier for the same price. Target doesn't have them any more, so I resort to Harbor Freight. I've been mail-ordering from Harbor Freight since the 1980's, long before they had stores east of California. This is a cheap tools import house that now has an outlet a few blocks west of Crestwood Plaza Court. The prices are amazing, but you get what you pay for.

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Would a king from the Middle Ages willingly swap lives with an average American?

Sometimes I try to imagine what it would be like to be a great and powerful king from the Middle Ages. I’m talking about kingly kings—those who would be deemed successful by other kings. If you were one of those top 25 percentile kings, just think of all the people waiting on you, and imagine all of your privileges, including your own court jester to entertain you, and lots of soldiers that you can use to expand or defend your territory. You would get to live in a beautiful big castle, and people from all around would seek your attention and bestow complements and gifts upon you and your family. Some of those visitors would come from far away and they would tell you stories from distant lands. If you got sick, the wisest doctor in the area would come to your service to give you the best health care available in the Middle Ages. Could there possibly be a better way to live than being a successful king? I then wonder how being a king would compare to living the life of an average American in modern times. Consider that the median household income for an American family in the year 2007 was about $50,000, and that this can buy you a lot of things. The average American has access to foods from all around the world by visiting the local grocery store. American families typically own automobiles that can go much faster and much farther than the horse of any king. The average American can use a television or computer to hear news from anywhere in the world. Using the Internet, the average American has a "library" thousands of times bigger than the library of any king. Americans don't have to imagine what it would be like to walk on the moon. They have photos and movies of people walking on the moon. They don't have to wonder what Mars looks like, because they have king-in-mini-cooperstunning photos. They don't have to wonder what stars actually are, or how big the universe is -- they have scientific answers to these questions and answers to many other questions that Kings wouldn't even know how to ask. The average American family has the option to stare at a large colorful television screen in their own home in order to be entertained by images and sounds that could not even be imagined by a king. When Americans get sick, they can go to hospitals that offer them stunningly effective cures for many maladies. The houses of average Americans are always kept warm in the winter and cool in the summer. A couple times each year, many Americans get to step into large silver machines that fly them to faraway places, traveling hundreds of miles per hour, where they capture incredible images with digital cameras. And then they share them with their Facebook kingdoms of hundreds of “friends.” You get the idea. Now let's assume that you could transport a Middle Ages king to modern times, and let him live the lifestyle of an average American for a few weeks. Here’s my opinion of what would happen: [more . . . ]

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How much filthy coal did you burn today?

Most people don't think much about how their electricity is produced. It turns out that half of the electricity in the United States is produced by burning coal. Maybe you're thinking "So what?" Here's why you should care. There is no such thing as "clean coal," it is still a fantasy, not a reality. Mining coal releases dangerous amounts of mercury into the human environment, including 48 tons of mercury, "the largest source of man-made mercury pollution in the U.S." Burning coal releases massive amounts of carbon dioxide. Coal is dangerous. And see here. In the United States, we burn a railroad car worth of coal every 3 seconds. This year, your family will burn 1,000 pounds of coal just to run your clothes dryer (yet many communities make it illegal to dry your clothes on a line outside). Each year, a 500 megawatt coal plant burns 1.4 million tons of coal. It also produces:

  • 125,000 tons of ash and 193,000 tons of sludge from the smokestack scrubber. A scrubber uses powdered limestone and water to remove pollution from the plant's exhaust. Instead of going into the air, the pollution goes into a landfill or into products like concrete and drywall. This ash and sludge consists of coal ash, limestone, and many pollutants, such as toxic metals like lead and mercury.
  • 225 pounds of arsenic, 114 pounds of lead, 4 pounds of cadmium, and many other toxic heavy metals. Mercury emissions from coal plants are suspected of contaminating lakes and rivers in northern and northeast states and Canada. In Wisconsin alone, more than 200 lakes and rivers are contaminated with mercury. Health officials warn against eating fish caught in these waters, since mercury can cause birth defects, brain damage and other ailments. Acid rain also causes mercury poisoning by leaching mercury from rocks and making it available in a form that can be taken up by organisms.
  • Tons of hazardous and acidic waste which can contaminate ground water. Strip mining also destroys habitat and can affect water tables.
Again, how much coal did you burn today? If you live in an area where most of the electricity comes from coal, the amount of coal you burn will astound you. Your family burned 30 pounds of coal today. And you'll burn another 30 pounds tomorrow. And the next day.
The average household in the U.S buys, on average, 900 kWh of electricity per month, roughly every 30 days. If we multiply 30 days times 24 hours, we find that there are 720 hours in a month. The average household, therefore, is responsible for consuming 1.25 pounds of coal per hour (900 kWh = 900 pounds divided by 720 hours). (Note: your mileage may vary, as we are assuming an ‘average’ house here. Check your utility bill for the past 12 months for your actual kilowatt-hour usage.) There are 8,760 hours in a year, so if we multiply 1.25 pounds by 8,760, we find that the ‘average’ house using 100% coal-generated electricity is responsible for the burning of 10,950 pounds of coal for the electricity they consume per year. That’s nearly 5.5 tons!
The question, then, is why we don't work harder to be more energy efficient? We could construct buildings that are close to carbon neutral (and see here). We could massively reduce our energy use without reducing our quality of life. Each of us could help in dozens of easy ways. Consider, too, that peak coal is approaching; don't believe the hype that there are many decades of cheap coal left. With all of these problems with coal, why does the U.S. Department of Energy website tout the virtues of coal without disclosing the dangers? Why doesn't the DOE discuss energy conservation as a means of drastically reducing the amount of coal we burn? The logic is indisputable: Those areas of the country that depend heavily on coal could cut the trainloads of coal they burn in half if they cut their use of electricity in half. There are easy ways to cut the our use of energy (and see here). We could live smart, if only we had the will, if only we would take the time to consider that there are far better options. If only we thought about it, we would realize that our energy-wasteful habits are killing American industry. Unfortunately, we live in a country that doesn't know how to stop bad things from happening and to make good things happen. We are squandering our future. It's pathetic for a country that talks such a big game to fail so miserably. Isn't it time to start writing a happier ending to this sad story? Here's how. Talk to your friends and neighbors about the dangers of coal. Take the time to learn more about coal. Read this Sierra Club publication: The Dirty Truth About Coal. And when you're trying to decide who to believe, remember that the Sierra Club isn't trying to make a profit, unlike those who want to burn ever-larger amounts of coal.

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