The Credit Snobs

Alex Tabarrok, an associate professor of economics at George Mason University, has an excellent piece on Marginal Revolution “The Credit Snobs”– referring to those who believe “credit is something only the rich can handle.”  He concludes, “The democratization of credit worries the credit snobs.  The credit snobs fear that capitalism isn’t just for the rich.”
If you’ve [...]

New study: Payday loans help in times of natural disaster

Communities affected by natural disasters are more resilient and less likely to face foreclosure if they have access to payday loans, says a working study, “Payday Lenders: Heroes or Villains?” by researcher and University of Chicago faculty member, Adair Morse.
From the press release:
The study finds that payday lenders provide critical capital to people in disaster-struck communities. [...]

Blogger criticizes media coverage of payday lending

Obviously inspired by today’s Reuters story on payday lending, Luke Ford, a blogger out of Los Angeles, wrote this today:   

Memo To Mainstream Media

“If you want to constantly attack payday loans, then abandon any pretense to journalistic objectivity. The articles recently published about this matter, all of them vilifying the practice of payday lending, fail even [...]

Half of Americans living paycheck to paycheck

Results from a survey by American Pulse found that 50.8% say they live paycheck to paycheck.

Not having a credit record doesn’t mean you’re a bad risk

Pamela Yip, columnist at the Dallas Morning News, has an interesting column today about the 40 million Americans who are “underbanked.”   Here’s a key passage:
“Some underbanked consumers have bad credit. Others may just have little or no credit history.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a bad risk,” said Jennifer Tescher, director of the Center for [...]

Pawn shops booming?

This blogger at the Huffington Post says that business at a local pawn shop in Pasadena, CA is booming.    He doesn’t expand on why, but the Pundit spoke to someone from California recently who said that between the building bust, housing prices falling, the state budget deficit, and the highest gas prices in the country, Californians [...]

Whining about payday loans doesn’t help anyone

This inarticulate screed in the Daily Press in Virginia is typical of many payday lending critics.   It’s devoid of a single fact, and instead is full of ad homonym attacks  It also reeks of self-righteousness.  How do you even have an intellient discussion with a person like this?   Just goes to show that groups such as VaPERL are not working [...]

This guy calls himself a journalist?

Nick Carey of Reuters wrote this piece of bad journalism connecting payday loans to the housing crisis.  What’s his evidence?  The Center for Responsible Lending says so,; not even in one of their phony studies, but based on a few anecdotes.  He also had time to find SEVEN critics of the payday lending industry, but [...]