Reader comments
New payday lenders banned for 6 months
8 comments | Read story
Get today's headlines via email
Afternoon edition
Deseret News Family Deals
In News
Across Site
- Is technology making us stupid? DECK:...
- Crews searching recycling center in...
- West Valley City leaders to join call...
- Colliding causes: Gay rights and...
- Woman charged in Rasmussen death...
- Photos: Salt Lake Main Library...
- Powells, Coxes put differences aside...
- Amendments to gutted sex education...
- Requests to alter online news...
- Salt Lake City celebrates 2002...
In News
Across Site
- Powells, Coxes put differences aside...
- Colliding causes: Gay rights and...
- View live stream of services for...
- Despite data, Lyme disease sufferers...
- Battling misconceptions: Faced with...
- Father-in-law dragged deeper into...
- LDS bishop ordered to stand trial for...
- Crews searching recycling center in...
- Josh Powell had 'incestuous' images...
- Focus returns to Powell children today
In News
Across Site
- Gay rights and religious liberty
79 - Families at odds over Powell's actions
54 - LDS bishop ordered to stand trial
41 - Utah House blocks Sandstrom bill
39 - Powell call:'I'm afraid for their lives'
33 - Photos: Year of the Dragon
26 - Bill would cut auto safety checks
24 - Should SLC bid again for Olympics?
23 - Utah takes $171M in settlement
19 - Powell told son he had 'surprise'
18







First, as "Tab" accurately pointed out, restricting the number of companies does exactly the opposite. More competition would lower the rates.
Second, people need money for a reason. A dozen bounced check charges may be 5 times the cost of a payday loan. Maybe some are blind to the rate, but most know it is costly, but less than the alternative.
These people aren't even putting up collateral. If so, they could go to a pawn shop at 120%. Rates there would be higher if there were fewer choices. Each new pawn shop doesn't cause more people to need money, it lowers the rates for those that do.
Payday lenders do not cause poor spending habits, they just fill a need people have caused for themselves. And, they fill it cheaper than the alternatives of bounced checks, late fees, poor credit, etc.
It is worth the risk to wait it out and see if such a scenario will play out, rather than allowing the governement to regulate it for us, for they will truely make a mess of it as they do on everything else they try to regulate.
Payday loan businesses are still somewhat in their infancy in many parts of the country. I know when I left Utah twelve years ago, I had never even heard of payday loan stores. It took the PC industry about that long before competition started driving down prices.
In many of the comments made about payday loan stores, I note that there tends to be a feeling that Utah has more than their share of payday loan stores. But during a week visit last month I really didn't notice any more than what there are in most places I have visited. These businesses are all through the midwest and southeast. In our town of 20,000 people there are seven of payday loan stores.