Forums: Payday Loans

September 02, 2009 10:23 PM The tests show it's true, but the question remains: how did a frog - or a toad - get into a Florida man's soda can? Apparently a man from Ormond Beach opened the can of Pepsi, took a drink, and started gagging. His wife shook the can, until the remains of an amphibian came out. The FDA confirms the findings. A spokesman for Pepsi says the company is aware of the testing, but stands by its manufacturing process. The man is seeking legal advice to determine what to do next.

Lawmakers have secretly approved awarding an illegal immigrant child molester more than $4 million because he was beaten by fellow inmates while in custody. Fernandez Ramirez, 24, is an illegal immigrant from Mexico who molested a 6-year-old girl in a park. The back door settlement, paid with tax dollers, gives the illegal alien's family $3.75 million and $900,000 will go to medical liens rendered while in custody. Orange County (CA) Board of Supervisors refused to comment on the settlement even though constituents have the right to know since it's their money.

Rick Wagoner will leave his post as CEO of bailed-out General Motors with a $20 million retirement package, the company's financial filings show. In this March 12, 2009 file picture, General Motors Chief Executive Officer Richard Wagoner listens... In this March 12, 2009 file picture, General Motors Chief Executive Officer Richard Wagoner listens as President Barack Obama, not pictured, speaks about the economy at Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies, at a hotel in Washington. Although the Treasury Department has barred GM from paying severance to Wagoner or any other senior executive, Wagoner is...

Payday lender and pawn shop operator Cash America International Inc. said Wednesday it will to close about one-third of its Ohio lending locations in the next few months, after voters in the state chose to maintain new payday loan restrictions. Voters Tuesday approved a new payday lending law that cuts the annual percentage rate that lenders can charge to 28 percent and limits the number of loans customers can take out to four per year. It is among the strictest laws in the country. Its backers say cash advances are defective products that trap borrowers into a cycle of debt....

The American dream is founded on the belief that people who work hard and play by the rules will be able to earn a good living... But that dream is harder to achieve for millions of Americans because they spend too much of their hard-earned money on fees to cash their paychecks or pay off high-priced loans meant to carry them over until they get paid at work. Here is one initiative that can unite progressives and conservatives as well as business leaders and community activists: helping the "unbanked" enter the financial mainstream by opening checking and savings accounts, and...

Representative Marian McClure calls payday lending an "ugly" business and intends to run payday loans out of business. Like the vast majority of Arizonans, I'm not a payday loan customer. But so long as payday loans are basically a commercial transaction between mutually willing parties, government's first reaction should be to leave them alone. A typical payday loan is short term and high risk. Someone with an urgent need for cash will borrow, say, $100 for two weeks and pay back $105. That's an annualized interest rate of about 130 percent, which is what policymakers find repugnant. But the transaction...

Oregon moved closer to a total cap on interest rates Thursday, when the state House passed a 36 percent limit on consumer loans under $50,000. The cap completes House approval of a package of bills aimed at banning the triple-digit interest rates charged by payday and car title lenders. "This doesn't end consumer lending," said House Speaker Jeff Merkley, D-Portland. "But it will end predatory interest rates." The House voted 36-21 in support of House Bill 2871, which will join four other bills pending in the Senate. Oregon's payday lenders, who operate about 360 stores, say the legislation will kill...

NASHVILLE — Former Democratic U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. has been named a vice chairman and senior policy adviser at Merrill Lynch & Co., the biggest U.S. retail brokerage, the company announced today. The 37-year-old Ford, who lost a narrow U.S. Senate race last year to Republican Bob Corker, will advise senior management on domestic policy issues, serve as a member of the company’s public policy committee and work on business development initiatives among other things, the company said. He will maintain offices in Nashville and New York. "We are delighted to have a dynamic, energetic visionary like Harold Ford...

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...