Blaming payday lenders for all of society’s ills

The Community Financial Services Association of America has just issued a press release slamming the recent Reuters story which blamed the mortgage crisis on payday lenders.  The Reuters article is purely anecdotal and those anecdotes come from known payday lending critics. The reporter did not call CFSA or anyone from within the industry for a comment.  Here is what D. Lynn [...]

Like an onion, the further you peel back Reuters story, the stinkier it gets!

As you already know, the Reuter’s story about payday lenders contributing to the subprime mortgage crisis lacks any real documentation to back that assertion up.  The reporter, Nick Carey, gets around this inconvenient truth by simply relying upon quotes from long-time payday lending foes. 
NewsBusters already called out Carey for shoddy reporting, but digging deeper we found [...]

Newsbusters busts Reuters for shoddy journalism

Matthew Vadum at Newsbusters, the popular website that holds media accountable, rips Nick Carey of Reuters for his story connecting payday lending to the housing crisis.  He particularly takes issue with his promiscous quoting of liberal activists. 
Some key quotes:
Carey bases his article almost entirely on anecdotal evidence and on statements by activists with an axe to [...]

Military personnel now rely on charity

The Pundit has mentioned this before, but here’s another story about how, in the absence of payday loans, milititary personnel now rely on charity.  We have no objection to service people getting free loans or whatever other benefits they need, but during the debate, payday loan critics said that other services–credit unions and banks–would fill [...]

Thoughtful piece in LA Times

Economist Christopher Thornberg has provocative column on payday lending in the Los Angeles Times.  Great quote from the piece:
 Despite high fees, people continue to use payday lenders with some frequency. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me eight or nine times, and clearly something else is up. It might be easy to accuse the firms of [...]