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So why is a payday loan your best option? Because the power company will turn off your electricity if you don't pay today. So you go get a loan which is payab

So why is a payday loan your best option? Because the power company will turn off your electricity if you don't pay today. So you go get a loan which is payable in a week for high interest+fees, and you then go pay the power company. Did you really need an entire industry that charges high interest to solve that problem? If such companies did not exist, what would happen? Electricity would get cut off right? Then what? It would happen to enough people in your community and together they would go to their local leaders and find solutions. Solutions that would not involve the creation of payday companies. Apply this set set of thinking to other scenarios: car payment (car gets repo'd if you don't pay today), your out of weed (gotta get high man), need to pay the babysitter so I can go to my minimum pay job. Try being poor for a while, its quite stressful. Every problem you can think of, by providing high interest loans to briefly avoid it, only causes these problems to get worse.

sokoloff 18y ago
I would rather not rely on "local leaders" (aka government) to do anything that private enterprise stands ready and willing to do. I'm sure people do use payday loans to go score weed to be happy and temporarily reduce the stress of their situation. IMO, they are better off for having that choice than not, and it's not my place or yours to force them to choose in way that we think is "more wise."
- jhancock 18y ago
  Many Americans have this idea that "all forms of commerce are allowed". They aren't and never have been in any society. It is government's (society's) place to put limits on people's behavior. That is the primary purpose of such systems.
  - sokoloff 18y ago
    If you're asking government to act as your agent to put limits on behavior for your own benefit, that seems rational. If you're asking government to act as your agent to put limits on behavior for my benefit, why not mind your own affairs and let me mind mine? I don't claim that all commerce is allowed. I do claim that government ideally gets its power from the people's consent, rather than the other way around.

sokoloff 18y ago

I would rather not rely on "local leaders" (aka government) to do anything that private enterprise stands ready and willing to do. I'm sure people do use payday loans to go score weed to be happy and temporarily reduce the stress of their situation. IMO, they are better off for having that choice than not, and it's not my place or yours to force them to choose in way that we think is "more wise."

jhancock 18y ago
Many Americans have this idea that "all forms of commerce are allowed". They aren't and never have been in any society. It is government's (society's) place to put limits on people's behavior. That is the primary purpose of such systems.
- sokoloff 18y ago
  If you're asking government to act as your agent to put limits on behavior for your own benefit, that seems rational. If you're asking government to act as your agent to put limits on behavior for my benefit, why not mind your own affairs and let me mind mine? I don't claim that all commerce is allowed. I do claim that government ideally gets its power from the people's consent, rather than the other way around.