Wampum

I watched Ted Strickland, Jon Husted, Bill Harris, all elected officials, and Bill Faith, executive director of the Ohio Coalition on Homelessness and Housing, doing a press conference today downtown. Faith led the effort to pass HB 545, which takes effect Sept. 1, and limits borrowers to four short-term loans a year and caps annual interest rates at 28 percent -- down from the 391% allowed under law that expires at the end of August.

I didn't have to use payday loans when I was in the service, but I was without dependents, and drew a higher rate of pay than many with the same time in grade. I've had to use pawn shops to cover non-discretionary expenses -- food for the kids at one point.

The industry media buy kicked off this evening. Some crusty guy wants to put his big pickup in hock every time he needs to buy between paychecks -- a reasonable use case -- for which, if the industry is to be believed, only loan products at a 391% interest are going to meet his needs.

I just laugh, if the guy was a farmer and he was putting his rig in hock to buy seed or fertilizer, or fuel for his tractor, several times more than four a year, even at 28%, he'd slide down the owner to share-cropper curve and be working for hourly without all those expenses. Not the model of New England frugality.

The press release that dropped in my inbox mid-morning shouldn't have had the words "usury" or "bible", and especially not in the same half-sentence.