By just about any metric you can use, Spain is not doing well right now. Nearly 27% of the country is unemployed, their GDP continued to shrink in the last quarter, they have a credit squeeze that keeps interest rates far above the euro average and keeps new businesses from opening, and there are further [...]

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The latest episode of the “Consider This!” podcast is out. Conservative commentary in 10 minutes or less. The housing bubble, anyone remember it? That’s when people who would not have otherwise been able to get credit to buy a house were given it anyway because the government pressured banks to do it. Everybody gets a home, and [...]

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I’m all in favor of consumer reporters. They usually find lots of good ideas on how to save people money or expose shady practices being used by proprietors of businesses defrauding the public. But she also writes one negative payday loan article after another. Over and over again, they come at us. But Ms. Harris [...]

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I’ve been doing some research into Texas Appleseed. It looks to me like a pretty good organization that helps kids and families.  Unfortunately, one of its employees is making some illogical statements about payday loans.  Honestly, I sometimes wonder if every state should require a class in basic logic given how often logic seems to [...]

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Tod Roberrson of the Dallas Morning News attempted to rebut my editorial on payday lending in his blog. I don’t like to make lengthy rebuttals, but I will because Robberson is the first to actually try and take me on point-by-point. For that, I give him credit. I apologize if I harp on what seem [...]

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The article by Ellen Schloemer of the infamous Center for Responsible Lending epitomizes the problem with noble-sounding “consumer advocacy” groups. The CRL is notorious for not actually responding to legitimate issues or questions, but deflecting the conversation to push their own anti-capitalism, anti-free market agenda. The CRL is all about big government. The blog post [...]

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The latest episode of the “Consider This!” podcast is out. Conservative commentary in 10 minutes or less. The Supreme Court recently heard 2 cases related to same-sex “marriage”. Facebook lit up with picture of red “equal” signs with folks proclaiming their support of “marriage equality”. But is equality really what this is about? This episode asks you [...]

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The Factory of Dreams is where non-profit “consumer advocacy organizations” with noble-sounding names go to manufacture “studies” made of out of unicorn hair, rainbow glitter, and pink marshmallow Peeps. In other words, anytime you see a “study” released by an entity called The Insight Community Center for Community Economic Development, you can be certain this [...]

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Gerald Britt’s column on payday loans gets several facts wrong, and the solutions he offers would eliminate short-term credit options in Texas, forcing borrowers to more expensive options they’ve already rejected. He claims SB1247 fails to address three issues: “Cycle of debt”: There is no cycle of debt.  The OCCC reports that the most frequent [...]

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It’s Holy Week here in the Philippines, which means lots of church going and Manila is emptying out for folks to go home for the Easter Holidays. First Things magazine discusses how Americans should view the crucifixion: not as an event to be watched, but as the result of our sins. They even quote Luther [...]

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The latest episode of the “Consider This!” podcast is out. Conservative commentary in 10 minutes or less. It appears that newly elected Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is a listener to “Consider This!” How do I know? I suggest a $20 minimum wage as a thought experiment in episode 31, and now she’s one-up’ing me, suggesting $22. [...]

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We already know that the mainstream media no longer has any interest in fairly reporting the news. What a shame, however, to discover that students at TheNewsOutlet.org, a “collaborative effort among the Youngstown State University journalism program, Kent State University, The University of Akron and professional media outlets including, WYSU-FM Radio and The Vindicator (Youngstown), [...]

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The New York Times’ recent editorial on payday lending (PDLs) unwittingly provides an argument in favor of permitting PDLs in states that have banned it. In addition, the Times renders an unfair judgment on PDLs by relying on data from The Pew Charitable Trust’s biased study, and a mercenary activist organization. The Times alleges that [...]

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Well, today we Filipinos woke up and found we wouldn’t be losing Cardinal Tagle to Rome: Apparently an Argentinian bishop was picked for the next Pope. But choosing a name usually is a hint on what the Pope plans to do when in office, and it is interesting that Cardinal Bergloglino chose the name of [...]

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The latest episode of the “Consider This!” podcast is out. Conservative commentary in 10 minutes or less. Hugo Chavez died recently. He took a country rich with oil money and turned it onto a socialist paradise, complete with high inflation, shortages of food and electricity (to name just a few items), and soaring crime rates. Only in [...]

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The latest episode of the “Consider This!” podcast is out. Conservative commentary in 10 minutes or less. The sequester that went into affect March 1st has President Obama lying about who came up with it (he did), how bad the cuts are (not bad), and how evil the Republicans are for letting them happen (they [...]

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A Critique of The Pew Study on Payday Loans There is an important lesson to be gleaned from the recent report on payday lending (PDL) from the Pew Charitable Trust, the second in its series on the short-term credit product: a study is not a substitute for reality and, unlike reality, is subject to multiple [...]

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The latest episode of the “Consider This!” podcast is out; let’s talk politics in 10 minutes or less. In this episode, I have a one-track mind. In the President’s State of the Union address, he proposed increasing the minimum wage by about 25% to $9 an hour, as though this will somehow defeat poverty. The fact is, [...]

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So The Center for Responsible Lending has declared today as a “National Day of Action to Stop Payday Lending”. So I am declaring today as a “National Day of Action to Stop Mercenary Activist Organizations”. The Center for Responsible Lending purports to “protect the consumer” by advocating for governmental bans on short-term credit, but instead [...]

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I remember when I had my first car.  I was so overprotective that I only took it the dealer for maintenance, even though it was expensive.  One day, during a routine service, the repair dude told me the engine mounts were worn and it was probably a good idea for them to be replaced.  Now [...]

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It took me a long time to realize it, but whenever somebody shouts, “Something has to be done,”, legislation doesn’t actually make things better.  In fact, it usually makes things worse.  Of course, I’m thinking about payday loans but other things as well. Okay, so a bunch of people don’t like payday loans.  Well, why [...]

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The latest reports is that our beloved President has breathlessly announced to Davos that he has eliminated corruption here since taking office, so come and invest your money here! From a headline in the Manila Bulletin: Aquino: PH Corruption Over With the days of corruption and mismanagement of the past administration finally over, the Philippines [...]

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Welcome to the First Virtual Church of Our Lord and Savior, Steve Jobs. As you enter the sanctuary, please do not make eye contact with anyone. Keep your eyes focused on the screen of the mobile device of your choice. We are relevant and practice diversity here, which is easy since no one will even [...]

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Last week I published an article on payday loans, and the opposition to them coming from Chris Morran, a deputy editor at the Consumerist.  I also made sure to copy him on the article so he’d see it. No reply. I am not surprised, but I am disappointed.  You’d think someone who has enough time [...]

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Apparently, Regions Bank found a way to offer a payday loan for a third less than most – at $10 per hundred borrowed, as opposed to the national average of about $16. And the bank still got criticized for it to the point where they no longer offer the loans. You have to wonder exactly [...]

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So here we have Mississippi House overwhelmingly passing a law permitting payday lending in the state through 2015.   Exactly one story is published on the passage, and it’s in the Associated Press, and (big surprise) it’s a negative article. It strikes me as incredibly lazy that an AP reporter just regurgitates sentences that literally could [...]

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In the book The Hobbit, Bilbo was given a short contract that included “funeral expenses” and a right to one fourteenth percentage of the treasure. Peter Jackson in his usual fashion did Tolkien one better, so Balin gives Bilbo a long intricate paper contract with a lot more details, written in a satire of legalese. [...]

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“You oughta get better locks around here if you don’t want people taking your private information, Mr. Squirl. It’s up to you to do something preventive….” “Mr. Mercer, I’m Jack Squirl, President of Data Miner Servicing, y’ know, ‘Servicing You With a Smile.’ Our security guard detained you one hour ago, and we are holding [...]

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Apparently, Chris Morran at The Consumerist doesn’t like payday loans. Now I happen to love The Consumerist.  I think it’s a very witty and snarky website that points out the many nutty injustices consumers sometimes face, and they often intervene in some really insane cases.  So I really want to give Morran the benefit of [...]

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“On the 19th September 1946 Winston Churchill delivered a famous speech at Zurich University which proposed the formation of a united Europe. Prescient though Churchill was about the need for political unity to replace conflict in Europe, there was some ambivalence about the part that Britain was, in his view, to play in this development. [...]

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