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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JK Rowling discusses the “fringe benefits of failure”

In June 2008, J.K. Rowling gave this delightful and insightful commencement speech recognizing the upside of failure. J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo. How is failure essential? Rowling told the audience that it "strips away the unessential" and sets us free to see what really matters. Rock bottom can become "a solid foundation." In fact, she urged that it is "impossible to live without failing at something." Rowling's 20-minute talk is filled with nuggets of wisdom, and illustrated with stories about people with the courage to freely think and act, as well as those who dared to value empathy more than "rubies."

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New Center to explore the role of religion in politics at Washington University

Wonderful news from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. The Danforth Foundation has made a huge financial contribution to create a specialized Center on Religion & Politics. Former U.S. Senator John Danforth was instrumental in making this possible. The following is from the Center's press release, which was issued last month:

$30 million endowment gift from Danforth Foundation funds creation of center

Washington, D.C., Dec. 16, 2009 — Washington University in St. Louis is establishing a scholarly and educational center that will focus on the role of religion in politics in the United States, according to Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton.

“The establishment of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics reflects the legacy of Jack Danforth and his belief in the importance of a civil discourse that treats differences with respect,” Wrighton said in making the announcement Dec. 16 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

“The center will serve as an ideologically neutral place that will foster rigorous, unbiased scholarship and encourage conversations between diverse and even conflicting points of view,” Wrighton said.

“Knowing that religious values and beliefs can either encourage or undermine civility, the center and its educational programs and scholarly research can provide a bridge between religious and political communities and will inform new kinds of academic explorations focusing on the relationships between the two. We think that’s a worthy goal.”

The creation of the center, which includes the recruitment of five new faculty members with endowed professorships, is being made possible by a $30 million endowment gift from the St. Louis-based Danforth Foundation. It is believed to be the largest gift of its kind made to a university to fund such an academic center.

The center opens January 2010 and will convene public conferences and lectures to address local, state and national issues related to religion and politics and also will offer an educational program in religion and politics, including an interdisciplinary undergraduate minor in religion and public life.

The new faculty appointments will be in the area of American religion and politics and will complement the work of scholars already on the Washington University faculty in the departments of history, anthropology, literatures and religious studies. The new faculty members will hold joint appointments between the new center and existing academic departments.

The center will attract visiting scholars to St. Louis and create opportunities for interaction with Washington University faculty, students and members of the St. Louis community. It also plans to publish and disseminate proceedings of conferences and results of studies by faculty, visiting scholars and students of the center.

“Historically, the responsibility for this kind of dialogue has most often been left to universities with religious connections,” said Danforth. “But great non-sectarian institutions like Washington University combine rigorous academic standards with traditions of civil conversation, and that’s why this is the perfect place for such a center. Few issues are more critical to the well being of a democracy than how religious beliefs — or the denial of such beliefs — co-exist with civic virtue and of how the ‘truths’ of the one are made compatible with the toleration and good will required by the other.”

The Columbia Missourian (based in Columbia, Missouri), provides additional context:

John Danforth, 73, of St. Louis, has often been at odds with others in the GOP because of his concerns about the influence of the Christian right. In newspaper columns, speeches and in a book, he has argued that Christian conservatives have focused on divisive issues that polarize Americans.

Washington University Chancellor Mark Wrighton said the center in St. Louis will reflect Danforth's belief "in civil discourse that treats differences with respect."

"The center will serve as an ideologically neutral place that will foster rigorous, unbiased scholarship and encourage conversations between diverse and even conflicting points of view," Wrighton said.

This is a wonderful development. Washington University is a first-rate center of scholarship, and there might not be a more important topic in these times. Here is yet more information on the new Center, from Washington University's website. I very much like the motto for the Center: "Common ground for civil dialogue."

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Failure to plan ahead on highway redesign.

St. Louis is still celebrating the December re-opening of its big highway construction project. "Highway 40" (now known as Federal Highway 64) was retooled with more than $500M in taxpayer money, much of it federal money. This highway runs along the heavily traveled "central corridor" of St. Louis, and it would have been a great place to leave room for a new light rail line (St. Louis has such a system that desperately lacks a line running down this central corridor). Or at least they could have thought of carving out a narrow biking route along the highway. None of these things were done, however. In St. Louis, many of us still think of private motor vehicles as our sole means of transportation. Highway 40 reopening - Photo by Erich Vieth Ironic, then, that officials opened the new highway to only pedestrians and bikes the Sunday before it opened the newly rehabbed highway to cars and trucks. I heard several people peddling on the highway exclaim that they could bicycle swiftly, in about 25 minutes, from the middle of St. Louis City all the way to Clayton on the new highway. Gad - it really didn't take that much longer than driving a car! But why wasn't accommodation made for light rail or even for a bicycling path? An official explanation showed up (at all places) at the St. Louis Science Center (it's no longer there). As you'll see, there is nothing scientific about this propaganda. On a big board offering the "FAQs" of the reconstruction, one could read the following "explanation." explanation I'll translate: We're short-sighted people. Notice how the "explanation" tries to lull you to sleep for the first few sentences before evading the question entirely? Here's another translation: "We're stupid." Here's another: "We lack a thoughtful set of priorities." Or this: "We'd rather give trillions of dollars to banks than fight for something sensible here at home."

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