Payday Loan Shark Industry Preys On Military Families

The battle against the immorality of the loan shark "payday loan" industry gained an important ally when the Department Of Defense has singled this criminal industry out for it's victimization of military families. Regardless of what one thinks about the Iraq War, it is a fact that many poorer younger persons enter military service because thay cannot afford college or need a paying job. These persons have no say in the wars that politicians send them off to, and are simply good working class persons who need work or help with college. Members of the military are deserving of respect and dignity regardless of the politics of war. It is a moral outrage when these members of the military are targeted for scams by criminals.

The loan shark "payday loan" industry seems to heavily target military families through advertising or other means, and a full 20% of users of these services are now military persons or their immediate families. Often military members or families find themselves between pay checks and require short term loans or pay advances to survive until their next pay cycle. This is where the criminal "payday loan" industry locks these military related persons in binding contracts with interest rates that run up to 500%. At these rates it is hard for poorer persons to break free of these criminal's bondage.

The Department Of Defense has singled out the State of Oregon for allowing the "payday loan" criminals a free hand to exploit military families. Republican legislators voted for a meaningless and watered-down bill to limit the "payday loan" and other related loan scam industries to a 36% interest rate cap, but the bill won't become law until way into 2007, allowing Republican legislators to further weaken or gut the bill entirely after the November election, which some have already promised to do. Republican legislators receive big donations from the "payday loan" scam criminals. During the 2004 Republican National Convention a major "payday loan" scam criminal was treated as royalty for donating in excess of $1 million to the national organization and party and driven to a NY diamond business to pick out diamonds for the women in his life as a thankyou gift from the Republican Party. The lesson in this is if exploit and victimize the poor, then the Republican Party will treat you like royalty.

The "payday loan" industry falsely claims that a 36% interest cap will force them out of business, when the truth is that some large and perfectly honest businesses such as CapitalOne usually charge no more than about 13% maximum interest on credit cards or other features. CapitalOne is also very flexible about offering credit cards or sometimes loans to persons who might be turned down by others. Rather than going into a terrible bindiing contract with "payday loan" crooks and scammers, CapitalOne offers a perfectly legal and honest alternative with fair and reasonable interest rates and they make payments very easy through flexible payment methods. Credit unions also offer low cost interest rates on short term loans and are a perfectly honest and legal alternative.

Military members and their familes deserve respect and dignity. Any industry that abuses them is antiAmerican.