Scott Walker Poised To Give Payday Lenders Radical New Powers To Prey On The Poor

[applegrove]

Scott Walker Poised To Give Payday Lenders Radical New Powers To Prey On The Poor

by Alan Pyke at Think Progress

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/07/10/3679141/scott-walker-payday-loan-expansion/

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Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has just a few days to decide whether to extend vast new business privileges to payday lending companies in his state after Republican legislators tacked the expansion onto the state budget at the last minute without debating the proposal openly.

The measure would allow payday lenders to start selling new lines of products to their customers, including insurance, tax preparation services, and financial advice. It would also license them to market annuities, a complex financial product in which the consumer effectively gambles on how long they will live — and can face years with little to no income if they don’t die as soon as they planned.

Like payday loans themselves, annuities are a marketplace where the seller has far more sophisticated information and analytic tools than to buyer to guide their decisionmaking. The imbalance of information allows unscrupulous companies to steer vulnerable customers into inappropriate financial products that are likely to do more harm than good to the person’s financial stability.

Payday lending and consumer credit experts told ThinkProgress that such a policy is almost unheard of, suggesting that Wisconsin could be taking a radical step to expand payday lenders’ access to consumers’ money beyond what is common in other states that allow the loans.


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[BillZBubb]

1. Shame on Wisconsin for voting for this kind of "leadership".

[packman]

2. I know that these so-called "loans" have outrageous interest rates

Does anyone know what the going rates are?

[TheFarseer]

3. I keep seeing the figure 391 percent

It seems like they passed a law that you could only charge 39 percent but I think they get around that with a "fee" upfront and of course they charge you if you can't pay it back at payday so you can pretty much say the interest rate is infinity at that point. Of course there's no law that says you have to go to those ass holes in the first place.

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. walker is sick

[CrispyQ]

6. Who votes for this sub-human scum?

Seriously, scum like Walker should only be getting 1% of the vote. WTF?