Arkansas Blog

The only way anything will ever change is for each of us to keep a list of elected officials who take money from the Payday Lender Mafia and remember to vote against them in the next election.

People worry about meth addiction, when all it takes to get poor people caught up in a vicious cycle of debt and misery is one visit to a Payday Lender.

I'm going to go call my prostitute friend and tell her thanks to the Ark Ledge she's doomed to continue to have to give her Payday Lender his weekly blowjob on the weeks she can't come up with the cash to make her payment. I just hope she gets him paid off before her knees give out.

I'm already dreading the day soon coming that Argue is term-limited out of the Ledge. Vic ain't the only legislative "saint" around these parts.

With Pettrus and Critcher in charge just what kind of victory did Demos and decency win last November. Not.

So maybe it's time for an initiated act???

Actually it is time for the Supreme Court to grow some balls and rule this crap is usury. It is good to see that term limited legislators can stay bought. Otherwise it would give public servant bribery a bad name. A $500 contribution so they can scew poor people. How disgusting.

One thing you can say about the "Noes" -- they work cheap. Five hundred bucks each, right?
One -- just one -- of those oh-so-necessary payday lenders can make that back with a dozen or so check writers on a slow day.
Someone explain to me where my vote and those of my poor to middle class neighbors went. I can't believe we voted for these bums.

Time to get in touch with these camellia's ministers, priests, rabbis or imams and ask them what sort of moral lessons they are teaching their flock. Is it money speaks and all else is silent? Is it I can spin reality to make it anything I want to believe in [these folks need the services of such outstanding businessmen]? Is it cowardice, so they simply go with the flow [of money]? Is it a lack of moral character and courage for which their religious leader is in part responsible? They should be called out next Sunday, Saturday or Friday night, stand in front of their fellow parishioners and explain their vote and how it comports with the values of their religion. Hypocrites; weak-kneed hypocrites.

Correct me if I need correcting, but doesn't the Hon. Mark Pryor, the former Arkansas state representative; former Arkansas attorney general; and current United States Senator (D-AR) also have a long history of being in bed with the payday lenders?

There is little shame in politics. And absolutely NO shame when pockets are being lined with cash. Politicos and lobbyists complicit in seedy stuff like this know they have nothing to fear from a disengaged electorate that's in a perpetual vegetative state.

The really shameful part about the travesty this morning was that none of committee members in attendance besides Senator Argue bothered to vote at all, and thus by default sided with the payday leeches.

Here's the Hall of Shame:

Percy Malone, D-Arkadelphia
Barbara Horn, D-Foreman
Bob Johnson, D-Bigelow
Paul Bookout, D-Jonesboro

(Committee Chair Paul Miller, D-Melbourne, didn't vote, either, but sometimes Chairs have a policy of not voting on a bill unless it would affect the outcome).

Absent from today's vote were Jack Critcher, D-Batesville (who attended most of the meeting but departed before the vote), and Terry Smith, D-Hot Springs.

Bravo to Senator Argue for his steadfast support of this pro-consumer legislation.

After today's (non) vote, someone should have asked, "Is there a doctor in the house?" Because several legislators in attendance obviously were in need of emergency surgery: namely, backbone transplants.

The AARP and the other groups supporting this bill need to make those spineless wonders remember their vote come elections next year.

"Correct me if I need correcting, but doesn't the Hon. Mark Pryor, the former Arkansas state representative; former Arkansas attorney general; and current United States Senator (D-AR) also have a long history of being in bed with the payday lenders?"

durangokid, you are 100% correct. As Attorney General in 1999, Mark Pryor did absolutely nothing of substance to stop the Payday Loan Shark Protection Act of 1999 (officially called the Check Cashers Act) from becoming law. Pryor even refused to allow two of his staffers to testify against the bill ON THEIR DAYS OFF. It was pointed out that during his 1998 AG campaign Pryor had accepted something like $18,000 in campaign blood money from the payday loan sharks.

Mike Beebe was not much of an improvement as AG. He filed a few lawsuits against the low-hanging fruit on the payday loan shark tree (Internet rebate payday lenders) but Beebe mostly sat on his hands.

As for the current AG, Dustin McDaniel seems to be AWOL on this issue as well, focusing on such ground-breaking public policy issues as seat belts (really using some political capital there).

The last AG who did anything substantial to thwart the payday loan sharks from ripping off Arkansans was Winston Bryant, who filed multiple lawsuits to shut them down during his second term.

The payday lenders responded by getting protective legislation enacted while an AG friendly to their interests, Mark Pryor, did everything but wipe their asses for them.

Percy Malone, D-Arkadelphia (WHORE)
Barbara Malone, D-Foreman (pin your own label on her)
Bob Johnson, D-Bigelow (WHORE)
Paul Bookout, D-Jonesboro (WHORE)
Committee Chair Paul Miller, D-Melbourne (WHORE)
Jack Critcher, D-Batesville (WHORE)
Terry Smith, D-Hot Springs (WHORE)

Mark Pryor (WHORE)

And they're not all. There are lots of whores at the Capitol. Always has been, always will be.

It's Barbara HORN, of course. My eyes and fingers get crossed when I'm this pissed.

Ms Horn has been on the wrong side of several bills in this session. Maybe some Foremanite needs to check her temperature. I've always thought she was better than this.

And where's Prouster, Severus, Donkey, and the anonymous desk? Here is the perfect place for them to scream crook crook crook at a bunch of Democrats and get no sass from me.

I know I am chiming in late and this may never be read, but here goes:
First of all I am as ticked off at the Ledge as everyone else seems to be, because the payday lenders are clearly money-grabbers.
That being said, Payday lending seems to be working pretty good in Arkansas. Why?
Because we have a lot of poor people. People who can't deal with a small emergency, people who don't have even $500.00 in the bank, people who can't afford to buy food for their families, people who don't qualify for or have a credit card, people who got fired from their job, people who don't have a job, people who need to go to the doctor.....and on and on.
These are people who need real money right now. No bank makes a loan of under $2,000. and a credit application is necessary, then a week or more before the loan is processed.
Poor people don't have a lot of options.
We need to focus our outrage and energy to the core problem: Eliminate poverty, and payday lenders will be out of business.

Right you are, BlueRidge, and how do we do it? By VOTING for people who understand the human condition, not the business connection; people who give a hell of a lot more than a passing nod to the reality of a great number of Arkies; people who are at least as concerned about poverty, disease and ignorance as they are with who the new AD will be. Where are these folks? I'm looking. . .

I'm looking, too, Pollytick, but I think I am just more and more afraid that my granddaughter is going to grow up in a very different America.
Payday lenders are bothersome to me, but in the whole scope, they are a very small problem.
Babies are dying in Iraq every day. Our very own soldiers are dying there every day.
Cancer is curable, as is AIDS, but we don't seem to to able to find the funds.
This once great country is scorned around the world, hated even.
So, somehow, payday lenders, however much I hate them, score 12 on my list of
"Things I Hate."
Let's get to the root of the problem.

BlueRidge,

The fact that payday lenders exist is not the issue. The issue is the outrageous rate of interest that is charged to downtrodden Arkansans who must borrow from these thugs.

As has been pointed out elsewhere, a 14-day payday loan typically costs Arkansas borrows 372 to 869 percent annually in interest, when the state constitution limits consumer loans to a maximum of 17 percent annually!

The Center for Responsible Lending reports that the average payday borrower pays $800 to borrow $325. This is a trap from which it is almost impossible to break free. That's why you see the surge of outrage on this page.

Okay! I have read all the above posts, well actually scanned them.

To all you anti-payday lenders, I need $350.00 today to pay my car note. I want to write you a post-dated check (14 days) for $400.00. And I want you to know there is no guarantee you will ever be able the cash my check to get your money back, and if my check bounces,it is not covered by the Arkansas Hot Check law since is considered a promissary note. There is nothing you can do except taking me to small claims court, and good luck.

Please help, my car note is past due and they are coming to reposess my car.

Oh Arkdude, what a savior you are. How did we Arkies live without you for
160 years? Did they have car payments in 1990? Did Arkies have mortgages or rent 20 years ago, 40 years ago?
Magically we have this NEED as never before to charge outrageous interest.
What a friggin savior you are.

Yes, Arkdude, and after about four months of not being able to pay your payday lending fees that escalate by $50 every paycheck you will still lose your car and now owe $750 to the payday lender (who will have found a way to collect some smaller side checks along the way to be sure he really isn't out any money). Great service to the people...

The law currently on the books prohibits rollovers as you described, Theodosius.

The law needs enforcement, period.

"The law currently on the books prohibits rollovers as you described, Theodosius."

I didn't describe a rollover. I guess a guilty conscience needs no accuser. But it is technically true that rollovers are illegal. However the law allows acceptance of partial payment and allows a new "deferred presentment" at another location of the same check casher. It's still quite possible to be paying $425/month for the $350/month car note and to not be able to get off of the treadmill. What a service.

Too bad Jesus isn't here to run
these whores and moneychangers
out of the state capitol.