If you want to keep the heat and lights on for the poor, there are better ways to do that, more directly. (Especially should we move to a "smartgrid".)

However, I do agree that I see little difference between the Payday Loan bandits and the ones at Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, etc., who also rip us off with outrageous fees and policies or just take our money and bet against us. The Payday Loan bandits are arguably more honest.

You may not like gov't regulation, I say we regulate the whole kit'n caboodle out of existence and treat the banks as a public utility.

I've used them in the past and even recently. I needed to do car repairs between pay days and didn't have room on the credit card.

Ohio passed the same type of laws. Luckily the payday lenders found old laws. Now it is go to one window to get a money order for your check. Cash it next window over. But it is pay $15 for the $100 or pay multiple $35 for overdraft fees.

The politicians need to stay out of it.

Can't we be grownups for ourselves and learn (or suffer the consequences and maybe then learn) from our mistakes...or choose the best case scenario for ourselves at the time?

No.

These companies are not defrauding anyone or being in any way dishonest. Yes, the interest rates and fees are high, but no one is forcing people to do business with them. Leave 'em alone.

Spending money on interest and fees at a payday loan store may seem like a stupid way to spend money. But then so are a lot of things. It's stupid to spend money on lottery tickets or gambling. Cigarettes. Junk food. Any restaurant meal over a certain price range. Overpriced designer clothing. $3,000 for a purse. Most plastic surgery. I can sit here and think up hundreds of equally stupid ways to spend money, but we don't legislate them out of business.

The people using these places could change the situation if they wanted to. But they choose not to, so why should that be any concern to the rest of us?

Clarification: by "changing the situation" I meant that the people using these stores could stop doing so any time they wanted.

And here's a question - if payday loan stores are "over"-charging their customers, why don't they have competition sprouting up all over the place and undercutting their prices?

I'm not automatically against all regulation. I heard about credit card companies that changed the interest rates on people without warning. One company was holding payments and making its customers incur late fees on purpose. But these cases fall under the existing laws we have against fraud. Why the special attention paid to check-cashing stores?

Okay, one more comment, then I'll take a breath and let someone else talk.

My sweety used to manage a rent-to-own store, which is owned by someone who also owns several check-cashing/payday loan shops. Rent-to-own is another high-interest thing. If you're going to buy furniture or electronics, you shouldn't even be buying them on credit. If you're willing to pay a credit card rate, or even a typical financing agreement rate, on a TV, you really should learn something about delayed gratification and buy something cheaper at Wal-Mart until you can afford the high-end one.

However, renting furniture for a few months would be an ideal situation for someone who is traveling on business. That's not a stupid business decision. If you took a six-month contract job in another city, it would be cheaper to rent an apartment and a few pieces of furniture for those six months than to stay in a hotel the entire time. You can't say that in every case, these companies are preying on stupid people with no self-discipline. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Stupid people with no self-discipline cost the rest of us a lot of money in social programs, so if the occasional entrepreneur finds a way to return some of that money to the private sector and create a few jobs, more power to 'em. Harnessing the power of stupid people is a skill to be admired.

I don't think payday loans are what we need to worry about when it comes to keeping the poor's lights on. I think dumbass liberal "cap and trade" plans that are going to jack up power costs astronomically are what we need to worry about.

if someone wants to pay that kind of interest for a loan, let them. They're adults.

They can be real lifesavers. Once my business was doing really badly, and I didn't have enough cash on hand to cover payroll. The bank wouldn't loan me any money for this. I went to a pawn broker, and got a loan at 36% interest, and used the money for payroll.

The business survived, and the loan was paid back when times got better. If I had had to rely on traditional financing, my business would have gone bankrupt and several people would have been out of work.

Even at 36% interest, I think I got a good deal.

This is similar to minimum wage laws. However beneficial they appear to be, they automatically disqualify from employment every person who can't add enough value to an enterprise to be worth the $8.00 per hour. So, the impact on some potential employees is quite cruel.

This is similar to minimum wage laws. However beneficial they appear to be, they automatically disqualify from employment every person who can't add enough value to an enterprise to be worth the $8.00 per hour. So, the impact on some potential employees is quite cruel.

You say that as though it was an unintended consequence.

It is not.

After all, who are you to turn to when nobody will hire you because you don't add value?

The government.

Big Brother loves you.

You are right about the annualized interest rate. If the loan is truly short term, like until your next pay check, the rate of interest matters little. The trick is to rarely if ever have to make use of an online cash advance.

I appreciate you pointing this out, because it's true that payday loans and cash advances provide financial value. You mentioned ACE, which actually lists reputable studies that confirm payday loans can have a positive effect versus cities and states that don't allow access to these type of short term consumer credit loans.
http://www.acecashexpress.com/ci_resources.php