Free Republic

Cashiering payday loans? By Ryan Krueger Published November 24, 2006 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The recent outcry for a ban on payday lenders made me wonder how many of those pointing fingers ever tried to open one of the doors they want to kick down. Have they listened to a customer describe what is on the other side? The tasteful accusation at fancy dinner parties is that they prey on the low-income worker, trapping him into unsavory interest rates. The hosts need to ask the caterer or nanny used that same evening for their opinions. Up front, I must disclose a bias of...

Cash-starved Americans, many of them serving in the U.S. military, are watching an increasing crackdown on one of their most frequent sources of last ditch credit - payday loans. Even Congress has clamped down on the practice, but a spokesman for the payday loan industry Thursday told Cybercast News Service that criticism of the loans is being led by "elitist" consumer groups whose members "never have to go paycheck to paycheck." Payday loans allow individuals to stay financially afloat between paychecks. They are short-term cash loans in which the borrower often hands over electronic access of their bank account to...

SAN YSIDRO – Customs agents seized $700,000 in hidden cash from a motorist headed for Mexico yesterday, after seizing drugs and arresting a Seattle homicide suspect Thursday. Agents checking southbound vehicles yesterday morning X-rayed a sport utility vehicle and found 67 small packages of cash hidden in the quarter-panels, U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Vince Bond said. Bond said the cash, totaling $700,000, was seized because the driver didn't have a U.S. Department of Treasury form that is required when taking more than $10,000 out of the country. It wasn't clear if the driver was arrested. A 30-year-old U.S....

BNP Paribas, Saddam Hussein’s favourite bank, is in the payday loan shark business, finding many of its customers from within the ranks of American military personal. Keeping it confidential which companies it is involved with on the new business front, the bank is operating with impunity. In its BNP-Paribas Watch, www.innercitypress.org reports that BNP is staying mum on which companies it is involved in on a flourishing new cottage industry in the U.S.: 7-11-style payday loan type operations. As prolific as dandelions in spring, payday loan storefront operations are thick around military bases. An underwear clad Saddam may be lingering...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Republicans say a fundraiser headlined by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger next week may bring in up to $2 million and be one of the state party's biggest paydays since the Ronald Reagan era - if not the biggest ever. Schwarzenegger's election last year marked a turning point for the state party, which for years saw Democrats control the state's top offices. The governor's success has attracted donors who "believe, for the first time in a long time, that the Republican Party can deliver in November," said Karen Hanretty, a spokeswoman for the state party. "People like to...

<p>No wonder the Rev. Al Sharpton - finishing way back in the pack yesterday in South Carolina, just weeks after being handed a hefty $5,500 fine from the Federal Election Commission - is so committed to his presidential campaign.</p> <p>That's where the money is.</p>

They had a glittering client list, dazzling reputations and smarts galore, but as 2002 drew to a close, William A. Ackman and David P. Berkowitz, hedge fund managers at Gotham Partners, were desperate. They had received a mountain of requests from investors asking for their money back and had suffered a devastating setback in one of their biggest investments. The men, who just a few years earlier had been at the top of the hedge fund world, were facing a run on the bank. But Gotham had little in the way of liquid assets. What had begun in 1993 as...