Thou Shalt Not Steal?

The point here is that the Moral conservatives have been taken advantage of by their Wall St conservative brothers in exchange for political funding for political leaders who talk a good moral campaign but walk a usury walk. It sure is good to fight abortion on the backs of the working poor knowing that it is easier to payday lending deregulated than to overturn Roe v Wade.

Did anyone else notice that the map shows that payday loans are illegal in Maine but the article stated that Maine has one of the highest interest rates on patyday loans? Is there a law enforcement problem in Maine?

Hmmm... Seems like there's a correlation between payday loan places and relative geographic proximity to Florida. Maybe it's all Florida fault. lol. Then the article makes itself utterly meaningless by bringing up some obvious other correlations, but not reporting any correlative real numbers. Leaving the reader with nothing interesting to think about except another reason I'll probably never need to visit Utah.

One of the dumber things I've read in a while. I'm going back to work now!

I personally think it's because evangelicals think financial regulation goes against the spirit of capitalism, and anything that goes against capitalism is a slippery slope towards communism, the modern day christians arch nemesis, because they believe communism is diametrically opposed to God and Religion. Therefore to save christianity, we have to clamp down hard at any of these loose communist strings.

I'm sorry for having such bad example of a christian, Danny Del. Thank you very much for showing the hypocricy so well. It's also a good example for me, who is christian, but so many times I fail showing what to be christian really means. It would be so good if this 'christian' as you wrote could read what you wrote... Maybe he would have a chance to repent. I read the Bible, I know what I do wrong, and I'm still failing to do the right thing. And more I read, more I see how hypocritical and showing wrong example I am. Truly thank you for your comment!

I think what is more important here is that it appears that the Wall St conservations have taken advantage of their Moral conservative brothers to get deregulation of payday lending by finacially supporting the the political candidates that talk a moral campaign but walk a usury walk.

Also according to the map payday lending is illegal in Maine but the article stated that Maine and Montana had the highest interest rates. Does anyone else find that a bit stange?

I'm glad Christian conservatives are getting what they voted for. Hope they get more!

Anything done in the name of beigood 'christian', can usually be found to be hypocritical at some level. I work for a radio station in Kerrville, Tx. There is a man who professes to be such a christian, he claims to have never even had a drink. For ours a day, he spews hate filled vitriol, slamming democrats and gays. He thinks AIDS sufferrers should be quarantined and he refers to Pres. Clinton as a rapist. He sounds like a combination of Barney Fife and Hitler. So much for the christian right.

The figures seem skewed. I would go to creditloanapproved.com to get a loan instead of a quick cash advance anyways, or creditbumper.com to improve my credit. Seems like throwing Christians into the mix is really strange and skewed.

Apologies to all, as I can't seem to command a Keyboard well enough to spell 'revival' without extra letters, and to Joeldpi, if it turns out I am, indeed, 'jumping to conlclusions' about any group. It's just that I used to work at a Christian-format radio station, and heard and saw how much advantage was taken on a daily, hourly, and minute-by-minute basis of those folks' honest, sincere, belief systems. That's all from me.

Add poorly educated as the other common denominator and this will become very understandable.

Add poorly educated as the other common denominator and this will become very understandable.

Like I said. Insinuation.

As the article states, this is a statistical correlation and not a causation. You can't successfully argue the intention of such an article if you don't understand the difference between the two.

Mr. Schlein is being disingenuous about where payday lenders locate their stores. They locate them in the area where they will be least regulated and where the "need" for their usurious loans is the greatest. I am a consumer bankruptcy attorney and see how people exhaust every option they can before visiting the payday loan businesses. These consumers are rarely able to ever pay the loan unless they get an income tax refund check. They just keep going back and writing new checks and paying at least the amount to cover the fee, which over time exceeds the amount of the loan, often by hundreds of dollars. The payday loan companies know this and have made a fortune off of people's financial misery. The tactics they use in threatening consumers who are unable to pay is also reprehensible. The Christian conservatives have truly made a deal with the devil by getting in bed with Wall Street and the Chamber of Commerce to loosen regulation over payday lenders, who are truly no better than the kneecap-breaking, usurious Mafioso types of years past.

It's dangerous to draw a cause and effect relationship between a correlation. It's also untrue for the article to say "...there's a disproportionate number of predatory lenders???usurious money-changers, depending on what you want to call them???in your flock, that's a significant fact, irrespective of the why." The why actually is very important, it's the only thing that matters. Be careful not to jump to conclusions.

So then you guys explain why the correlation.? Just accidental that where you find the worst usury, you find Christian Conservative political dominance.

This article posed a correlation not a causation. Just because there's a statistical correlation does not mean that one causes the other.

Mr. Schlein is being disingenuous about where payday lenders locate their stores. They locate them in the area where they will be least regulated and where the "need" for their usurious loans is the greatest. I am a consumer bankruptcy attorney and see how people exhaust every option they can before visiting the payday loan businesses. These consumers are rarely able to ever pay the loan unless they get an income tax refund check. They just keep going back and writing new checks and paying at least the amount to cover the fee, which over time exceeds the amount of the loan, often by hundreds of dollars. The payday loan companies know this and have made a fortune off of people's financial misery. The tactics they use in threatening consumers who are unable to pay is also reprehensible. The Christian conservatives have truly made a deal with the devil by getting in bed with Wall Street and the Chamber of Commerce to loosen regulation over payday lenders, who are truly no better than the kneecap-breaking, usurious Mafioso types of years past.