Last year the state legislature failed to act upon the booming pay day loan industry.  The higher ups at Ft. Lewis particularly wanted action taken against this industry.  Everywhere you look another pay day loan office is popping up.

For those not particularly familiar with the pay day loan industry it is easy to describe.  A pay day loan is where you go into an office and write a check for say $500.  The pay day loan office will give you say $450 and promise not to cash the check until you get paid, a week later or so.  Pay day comes and the loan company made $50 interest on a one week loan.  This works out to an astronomical annual rate.

Pay day loan offices are often in the least affluent neighborhoods, some may show up in more upscale areas, but they are primarily fixtures of the low rent district.  There has been a recent boom in these business here in our town.  Near Ft. Lewis you can't swing a cat without hitting a pay day loan business.

Now the pay day loan business is set up do do one thing and one thing only.  That is to exploit the poor.  To deprive them of their meager resources to enrich the business at obscene levels.  This has to be curtailed.  No business should be allowed to operate uncurtailed when their only mission is to exploit the poor.

The pay day loan people will claim that they are providing a valuable service.  Making money available to those that don't have access to traditional borrowing sources.  There may be a grain of truth here, but mostly the pay day loan people create opportunites where none are required.  They provide easy access to the money so people take advantage of it.  It has to less with altrusim than it has to do with psychology and exploitation.  The costs to the poor are huge.  A good many of the clients of these services end up owing tens of thousands of dollars on what started out as a $500 loan. 

Our state legislature did noting last year to curtail this exploitative business.  This is the most parasitic of busineses.  Not only are the poor exploited for the money,  but it produces nothing for our communities and the money is quickly exported out of our community.

The old adage about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer is no more apt than in this situation.

I am not a great fan of the military or the current wars they are supporting.  In many ways the cycle of exploitation brings many to military service.  It shames me to think that these people would continue to be exploited after they put their lives and body parts on the line for their service.

Next year let us make this one of the priorities of our legislative ssession.  Let's hold the legislature's feet to the fire on this and make sure action is taken to make this a less exploitative industry.  I can not believe that in this era it is still possible to find ways of exploiting the poor.