Thank you for lending your voices to the growing outrage. Certainly no moral Virginian thinks that businesses should make money by any means, regardless of how damaging it is to working families and communities.

“I have a lot to learn about the Virginia state legislature. Is it normal practice for the committees to meet when the legislature’s not in session?
Can anyone suggest ways to track this activity, or do we have to rely on alerts from interested lobbies?”

I still say that there can be no justification for 780% interest. There’s a reason so many of these companies have popped up. It’s less about need than greed.

And if these wonderful lenders of last resort “saved [the borrower's] butt”, why were you talking to them? I think you’ve spinning it a bit much, no?

We have two options. The first option is to allow those people to make an educated decision to incur the costs of borrowing the money. The second option is to preclude this option and simply let them default on their other obligations. Let them bounce checks. Let them lose their cars. Let their electricity be turned off. Let them declare bankruptcy.

We all know how manipulative you’re being with the numbers. Of course a fee for money looks huge if you misconstrue it as an APR calculated over a year. However, a bounced check charge looks even bigger. The societal costs of not having this last resort are astronomical. Of course, I’m sure if you all had your way this wouldn’t be a problem since the government would simply stand on the street corner and hand out money.

Even as an avowedly-left liberal, my work in a heavily regulated industry has brought me around to a generally anti-regulation viewpoint. That said, the lenders targeted by this bill are destructive bottom feeders, at best. It’s an incredibly profitable industry that, for the most part, doesn’t bear the societal costs it incurs. Bring on the regulation.

This is state-sponsored loan-sharking, pure and simple. The government should not sanction such behavior. The people being taken advantage of are the working poor.

These businesses thrive not only because of the need for their services but also because of the obscene profits. The “buy here, pay here” car dealerships exist for the same reasons – and they seem to be able to make a profit with the 36% cap.

(To say that they offer no collateral is not really true, by the way. They are providing access to their checking account for repayment.)

First, Payday lending fees, calculated as APR (which is inappropriate to begin with) are much lower than bounced check charges calculated as APR.

Second, Payday lenders are lenders of last resort. If they weren’t needed, they wouldn’t thrive. Let’s see you try to live paycheck to paycheck and walk into your neighborhood bank with no collateral and ask for $500 to keep the electricity on and the water running. Good luck. Who should these people turn to, the government, national banks, regional banks, you? Whose gonna help these people?

Finally, of course the fees are high as an APR basis. These are the least creditworthy borrowers who are making short term loans with no collateral. Without the current fee structure there is no way the risk could be justified.

I just love when “liberals” lament the plight of the poor yet try to set up government created barriers to the poor joining our economy. Payday lenders provide a necessary and often last resort service. When your grandmother, or friend or neighbor gets evicted because no one would loan them money and the Payday lenders are out of business, I hope you’ll go apologize.