Reminder: Republicans don’t have a corner on the market of shitbaggery.
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This seems relevant here:
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And a real conservative would tell you that what Warner wants to do is prohibited by the all-but-forgotten tenth amendment.
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I’m under the impression that the reason commercials for lending services have a minimum loan amount of $2500 is because that’s the cutoff for usury laws.
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It’s like all these private equity firm guys saw the restaurant bust-out scene in “Goodfellas” and simultaneously decided that it would make a great business model. It was great for a mobster, of course, but I suspect that Paulie would have been smart enough to know that busting out an entire industry employing tens of thousands of his fellow citizens (neoliberal translation: consumers/human resources) might not be such a great idea.
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Doesn’t every American with half a clue know that getting all the filthy corrupt neocon scum in the Democratic party and putting them in the woodchipper is the only way you can save your country?
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A reminder:
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It’s easy to forget in this day of GOP dominated assholery that alas, democrats are still politicians.
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Even by “normal politician” standards, the Democrats are appalling.
The GOP are shamelessly corrupt fascists. The Democrats are hopelessly corrupt plutocrats. Neither party represents the American people; they are merely the competing factions of the American ruling class.
Both parties are globally catastrophic. Neither one is survivable.
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In general I like the fact that the Democrats at least have general leanings toward a social safety net and civil rights. So given the choice between 3rd party candidates (aka throwing my vote away), the thieves I am ideologically opposed to (aka Republicans and other “conservatives”) I’ll vote for the thieves who at least pretend to share my ideals.
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But traditionally it was Democrats with Sex Scandals and Republicans with Fiscal Scandals; the whole world is turned on its head!
@Wanderfound Over here in the UK the “left” party (Labour) has managed to highlight a clear rift between the elected members and the party members, with the Parliamentary Labour Party being at odds with the wishes of the wishes of the Party Members. The members keep on electing the “wrong” leader and annoying the heck out of the MPs and Party Elite.
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It’s true, an “honest”, “uncorrupted”, and “moral” politician no longer exists, but I think that there are at least varying degrees of evil among them. I’m an old man and still slow to toss the whole thing, but I’ll admit that the idea of tossing it all into the wood chipper has its appeal. Unfortunately, I think that’s what a lot of people thought they were doing last year and - to me at least - the results have been disastrous. It wasn’t the tossing that was the problem, it’s what we got as a replacement.
I think we’ve got to work with what we’ve got, and sometimes that means taking incremental steps - I’m a pretty left wing old fart who certainly aligned more closely with Bernie Sanders than the mainstream candidate, but didn’t think Bernie could get elected. Better to make three small steps in the right direction than none at all … If I was king (and really, wouldn’t we all be better off if I was?) we’d have socialized medicine, full healthcare for all, we’d try to stop hating people who were different, and I’d have a Wayback Machine so that I could go back a few hundred years to change change a few attitudes that have been festering for that long. And maybe kick Andrew Jackson in the balls.
But that’s just me, I know other people have different opinions, and that’s OK too …
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Paying lower no taxes.
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somewhat of an even handed article that gets down to what Warner’s bill is trying to accomplish…
As for the argument that Warner’s bill could actually help low-income Americans, that’s … plausible. But a better alternative, one without all these perverse side effects, would be to address low-income Americans’ precarious finances directly with a nonprofit public option for small loans and banking services. The idea of having the U.S. Postal Service do just that has gotten some traction recently.
I don’t believe Warner is out to get the poor. But his bill is a good example of how Democrats’ preference for market-friendly incrementalism has hit the point of diminishing returns.
National anti-usury regulations would be a great start. But who’s going to implement them? Certainly not the agencies that nominally report to Trump.
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I spoke to my state rep about this the other day and his reply was that he had just introduced a bill to ban these bastards from operating in Va and he was unaware of Warner’s legislation. He’s aware now.
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That gets him halfway there.
The payday loansharks are scum who should be driven into extinction, but they do service a regrettably genuine need.
What is your Rep doing to ensure that emergency financial support is available to the poor? Without that, shutting down the loansharks does not solve the underlying problem.
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Good question. I’ll ask him.
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