GUEST COMMENTARY: Proposed payday loan bills don’t solve problem
Clearly, the payday loan issue is one that stirs vigorous debate on both sides. When trying to decide which side carries the moral high ground in these types of debates, I tend to simply look at how arguments are constructed, and the soundness of the premises used to arrive at any given conclusion.
By this standard, I must say that Still has failed miserably in her attempt to persuade me that the payday lending industry is the predator she paints it to be.
Still begins by stating, “The nature of payday loans is neither forgiving nor helpful to most Missouri consumers.” However, there is nothing to support this conclusion. She simply spirals into a diatribe about APR. The actual APR is irrelevant to her conclusion that these loans are not helpful. It also is irrelevant to the point of forgiveness for two reasons. First, the loan is not annualized. Rather, as everyone knows, it is a two week loan. Second, if APR WERE the determining factor in “forgiveness”, Still would also be railing against $35 bank fees against a $5 overdraft. Still fails to support her conclusion that payday loans are both unforgiving and not helpful.
She also states that, “Mr. Rosman is the rare consumer who was able to pay back his loan without going too far into debt.” I could write a book about the logical problems Still presents with this comment, but I’ll simply point out that in order to make this sort of claim, I would expect hard data to back it up. Still provides no data, no studies, and no supporting information to justify her claim. Further, words such as “rare” and “too far” are intentionally ambiguous, thus by nature requiring very little support. It has been my experience that when ambiguous terms are used in the course of an argument, supporting premises to a conclusion are weak at best, and non-existent at worst.
Still’s argument, in essence, is that payday loans should be reduced to a 36% APR because they do not bennefit Missourians, and even if they did, the current standards or those proposed to allow for a 300% APR result in the “rare” ability to repay the loan. However, when reviewing her argument, I did not see one piece of supporting evidence to draw such conclusions.
So, to my earlier point, I tend to dismiss arguments and persuasions that are steeped in emotional buzzwords, but lacking any true, real, or sunbstantive facts, evidence, or data. Perhaps this is the reason that so many of Missouri’s elected state respresentatives have yet to get on board with Still’s agenda. An agenda without reason is merely a crusade, and I applaud the Missouri legislature for allowing reason and logic to rule the day. I sincerely hope that it will continue to require Still to justify her claims before enacting any legislation.
It seems to me that since Still is on her third attempt at killing a service in her state, if she had any true justifications, she would have presented them by now.
Article source: http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2012/01/12/guest-commentary-proposed-payday-loan-bills-dont-solve-problem/
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