6 ms·

Take issue with payday loans not him.

by quizbiz 18y ago

PostOnce 18y ago
That's ridiculous. You don't blame rape, you blame the rapist. That doesn't make any sense and you know it. Just because other people do something wrong doesn't mean it's fine for you to do it.
- quizbiz 18y ago
  Rape is illegal and horrible. Payday loans are very bad but they can be a hand in desperate situations. Then again, the fact that payday loans are legal doesn't mean that they are ethical. I get that. But we don't know what his firm's policies were, if any measures were taken to prevent payday loan abuse, etc. I find the debate about payday loans much more interesting than the debate of whether or not he should feel guilty for profiting. I don't know the regulations involved with payday loans but I assume they are very strict (and they should be stricter).
  - jibiki 18y ago
    You said, "take issue with payday loans not him." Then you said "we don't know what his firm's policies were, if any measures were taken to prevent payday loan abuse, etc." This is exactly the opposite sentiment: that we should take issue with him if his specific practices were predatory, but not with payday loans in general.
  - jhancock 18y ago
    Regulation on paydays loans is by design not strict. Most states passed special laws to work around existing usury laws to enable companies like these to exist. Its up to the payday company to figure out how to be profitable...and most are.
cia_plant 18y ago
But he ran a payday loan business. If you agree with me that this is an immoral business model, then how can you see the person who knowingly runs such a business as anything but immoral?
- sokoloff 18y ago
  This dust-up over payday loans seems to me to be largely the same issue as low-wage garment work overseas. You might think "Boy, I hope I never get into a financial situation where taking out a payday loan is my best option!" And I'd agree with you 100%. When you extend that thinking to "Boy, if I were ever in such a dire situation, I wish that someone would take my best option [which we just agreed above was a payday loan] completely off the table such that I'd have to choose some even worse option than that!" is where you've departed from what I consider rational, logical thinking. If a payday loan is the best option for some overall disadvantaged consumers, why would one want to outlaw their best option, leaving them even more disadvantaged?
  - swombat 18y ago
    That's a nice theory, but it's totally ignoring the reality of payday loan companies. There's a fair few of them in the UK too and they are all, with no exception that I'm aware of, basically usury shops. They pressure their customers into taking up new high-interest loans when their old ones run out, by sending out hapless representatives to talk them into it (note: the reps are themselves pressured into using every trick in the book to try and make a sale, with all the company bullying and brainwashing techniques you can imagine.. I consider them victims too). They'll send out those reps when holidays approach too... "Wouldn't you like £200 cash right now so you can buy your kids a Christmas present?".. All in all, they're really the bottom of the barrel in terms of business ethics. Worse than crooks. I find it hard to believe that a payday loan company could be competitive without using all the shady tactics in the book, unless they did something radically different. There's no indication in the article that this one did something different, so it's fair to assume that this payday loan company was much like all the others.
    - iigs 18y ago
      If someone walked up to me and said "Wouldn't you like $292 cash right now so you can buy your kids a Christmas present?", I'd say "No". A lot of other people would say "Yes", though. I have some distant acquaintances that are horrible with money. In the last year they have been behind on their car and mortgage payments, the woman has been steadily employed but the man doesn't work any more than he absolutely has to. That said, on payday they buy PS2/PS3s and games, and are at the pawn shop on a monthly basis hocking them again (this cycle has happened 2-3x that I'm aware of, and I hear things third-hand). It's cultural for them to not trust banks, so they "keep" cash. These people place no value whatsoever on their credit score, and they seem totally unconcerned about using the tools at their disposal, despite the financial implications. The husband went out of town a while back with a shady family member "to work". The shady family member had been in recent trouble (kept within the neighborhood -- they don't call the police) for home burglary and assault/robbery. There wasn't any hard evidence but there was the unstated concern that the "work" might not have been on the up-and-up. Is it wrong to offer a paycheck loan service to people like this? There's certainly no way to draw causation here, but there's non-zero correlation. For people that choose to live this way how is it even ethically wrong? It's what they want and they're not concerned about the downside (living a little tighter next week), and they'd blow right past the boarded up paycheck loan shop to get to the neighborhood loan shark if that was the next best option. Personally I'm of the mind that safe, legal, regulated access to loans for people who otherwise could not get them are a valuable service. Even if they're as unpleasant as needle programs for druggies.

Take issue with payday loans not him.

by quizbiz 18y ago

Take issue with payday loans not him.

That's ridiculous. You don't blame rape, you blame the rapist. That doesn't make any sense and you know it. Just because other people do something wrong doesn't mean it's fine for you to do it.

quizbiz 18y ago
Rape is illegal and horrible. Payday loans are very bad but they can be a hand in desperate situations. Then again, the fact that payday loans are legal doesn't mean that they are ethical. I get that. But we don't know what his firm's policies were, if any measures were taken to prevent payday loan abuse, etc. I find the debate about payday loans much more interesting than the debate of whether or not he should feel guilty for profiting. I don't know the regulations involved with payday loans but I assume they are very strict (and they should be stricter).
- jibiki 18y ago
  You said, "take issue with payday loans not him." Then you said "we don't know what his firm's policies were, if any measures were taken to prevent payday loan abuse, etc." This is exactly the opposite sentiment: that we should take issue with him if his specific practices were predatory, but not with payday loans in general.
- jhancock 18y ago
  Regulation on paydays loans is by design not strict. Most states passed special laws to work around existing usury laws to enable companies like these to exist. Its up to the payday company to figure out how to be profitable...and most are.

cia_plant 18y ago

But he ran a payday loan business. If you agree with me that this is an immoral business model, then how can you see the person who knowingly runs such a business as anything but immoral?

sokoloff 18y ago
This dust-up over payday loans seems to me to be largely the same issue as low-wage garment work overseas. You might think "Boy, I hope I never get into a financial situation where taking out a payday loan is my best option!" And I'd agree with you 100%. When you extend that thinking to "Boy, if I were ever in such a dire situation, I wish that someone would take my best option [which we just agreed above was a payday loan] completely off the table such that I'd have to choose some even worse option than that!" is where you've departed from what I consider rational, logical thinking. If a payday loan is the best option for some overall disadvantaged consumers, why would one want to outlaw their best option, leaving them even more disadvantaged?
- swombat 18y ago
  That's a nice theory, but it's totally ignoring the reality of payday loan companies. There's a fair few of them in the UK too and they are all, with no exception that I'm aware of, basically usury shops. They pressure their customers into taking up new high-interest loans when their old ones run out, by sending out hapless representatives to talk them into it (note: the reps are themselves pressured into using every trick in the book to try and make a sale, with all the company bullying and brainwashing techniques you can imagine.. I consider them victims too). They'll send out those reps when holidays approach too... "Wouldn't you like £200 cash right now so you can buy your kids a Christmas present?".. All in all, they're really the bottom of the barrel in terms of business ethics. Worse than crooks. I find it hard to believe that a payday loan company could be competitive without using all the shady tactics in the book, unless they did something radically different. There's no indication in the article that this one did something different, so it's fair to assume that this payday loan company was much like all the others.
  - iigs 18y ago
    If someone walked up to me and said "Wouldn't you like $292 cash right now so you can buy your kids a Christmas present?", I'd say "No". A lot of other people would say "Yes", though. I have some distant acquaintances that are horrible with money. In the last year they have been behind on their car and mortgage payments, the woman has been steadily employed but the man doesn't work any more than he absolutely has to. That said, on payday they buy PS2/PS3s and games, and are at the pawn shop on a monthly basis hocking them again (this cycle has happened 2-3x that I'm aware of, and I hear things third-hand). It's cultural for them to not trust banks, so they "keep" cash. These people place no value whatsoever on their credit score, and they seem totally unconcerned about using the tools at their disposal, despite the financial implications. The husband went out of town a while back with a shady family member "to work". The shady family member had been in recent trouble (kept within the neighborhood -- they don't call the police) for home burglary and assault/robbery. There wasn't any hard evidence but there was the unstated concern that the "work" might not have been on the up-and-up. Is it wrong to offer a paycheck loan service to people like this? There's certainly no way to draw causation here, but there's non-zero correlation. For people that choose to live this way how is it even ethically wrong? It's what they want and they're not concerned about the downside (living a little tighter next week), and they'd blow right past the boarded up paycheck loan shop to get to the neighborhood loan shark if that was the next best option. Personally I'm of the mind that safe, legal, regulated access to loans for people who otherwise could not get them are a valuable service. Even if they're as unpleasant as needle programs for druggies.