Predatory lending is armed robbery and should be treated as such by all levels of government.
Payday lenders are not armed with firearms, it is true, but they have even more threatening weapons, a harsh economy and plenty of money to spend on carefully calculated marketing and persuasive advertising.
Once these greedy, unscrupulous sharks get their hooks into their victims, they make loans at 90 percent or much higher interest rates to desperate borrowers to pay back loans to pay back loans to pay back.
It’s all in the public interest, lobbyists and propagandists for the predatory lenders tell members of Congress,state legislators and city officials who continue to allow these crooks to conduct their business in plain sight. It’s worse than the Mafia ever was!
I’m not telling you something you didn’t know. I’ve written about it many times, and this daylight robbery has only gotten worse. Other journalists write about it too, including Eric Wesson, who wrote the lead story on the subject in this week’s Kansas City Call.
Wesson’s story is about a group of black ministers who are mobilizing to fight this organized crime in the Missouri General Assembly. Let’s get behind them! Start by reading The Call’s well-researched story.