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Dog Bites Man:Payday Lenders Skirt Rules

ArchPundit June 4, 2003 No Comments

In one of the least surprising elements it turns out that payday loan companies are skirting recent regulations in Illinois by increasing the length of loans by one day,

Illinois regulations aimed at reining in the fast-growing but controversial business of payday lending have proven ?virtually irrelevant? as the lenders find ways to skirt the rules, a draft study by state financial regulators says.

The preliminary report by the Illinois Department of Financial Institutions (DFI) shows that the state?s more than 800 licensed payday-loan locations are avoiding state-imposed limits on how much they can loan to an individual and how many times they can refinance a loan.
The rules apply to loans with terms of 30 days or less; lenders are dodging the restrictions by writing loans of 31 days, the report says. Before the rules were instituted, the standard payday loan?designed to tide over strapped borrowers until their next paycheck?came due in 14 days.

The regulations, issued in 2001 by the DFI over industry objections, were hailed at the time as the first substantial oversight of Illinois? payday lenders. They barred lenders from ?rolling over,? or refinancing, a loan more than twice and required that at least 20% of the outstanding principal balance be repaid when a loan is refinanced.

But today, the industry operates nearly as freely in Illinois as it did before the rules, the DFI report indicates.

?They were dead on arrival once they were promulgated because of what the industry did in reaction,? says Alan Alop, deputy director at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, which gives free legal advice to indigent Cook County residents. ?I?ve never seen a payday loan since those rules were issued that fell within the purview of the rules.?

The Good Sports News

ArchPundit June 4, 2003 No Comments

The Bears are locking up Brian Urlacher for his career.

I don’t talk about first place Chicago baseball teams that are not the Sox when they are in 1st Place. Ever. It is bad karma and I’m extremely superstitious.

Later, but…

ArchPundit June 4, 2003 No Comments

Check out Ted Barlow who is back…

New postings tonight or tomorrow morning.

And one More

ArchPundit June 2, 2003 1 Comment

Does anyone know if Success-N-Life by Bob Tilton plays in St. Louis? It looks like it was pulled from BET–meaning the only entertaining show is gone.

It’s One of those Days

ArchPundit June 2, 2003 No Comments

Jim Bakker is back!

When Bakker told CNN interviewer Larry King shortly after his release in 1994 — the original sentence having been reduced — that he would not do television again, "I meant what I said," Bakker said. "When you put your hand in a fire and get burned, the body reacts to that, and it remembers that. What I had been through had been so painful that I could not imagine doing it again."

He added: "For years I set about to do a number of other things, but I could not get away from what I feel God called me to do, anointed me to do, and that’s Christian television."

"The New Jim Bakker Show" has been made possible largely due to one benefactor whose marriage was healed at Heritage USA — Bakker’s former Christian resort — years ago. Dee and Jerry Crawford own the studio-café, the small hotel across the street and the home where the Bakkers live.

But there are still financial struggles. "I had hoped I could do this without raising money on the air, but airtime is so expensive," Bakker said. "Many stations gave us a few months for free or at a reduced rate to get us started, but now we have to generate the money needed to keep us on the air."

For former PTL producer Gene Bailey, a media consultant for the new show, "it’s like going through a time warp. Everything that was good about the old ‘PTL Club’ is back — without the hype and the glitz."

I’m just unsure what the good was besides the hyperbolic hype and glitz.

Speaking of the Religious Right

ArchPundit June 2, 2003 No Comments

CalPundit already got a sneak peek of this week’s Kevin McCullough column.

McCullough argues that conservatives are too accepting of homosexuals and seems to pay an awful lot of attention to gay people. In Kevin’s comments a couple shots are taken at McCullough’s knowledge that normally I would find distasteful. First, there is nothing wrong with being gay so if McCullough was gay, that really is more of an embarrassment to gay men. On another level it sounds childish, sort of like if a columnist made fun of Steve Neal being a drunk.

Open Thread–Senate Cattle Call Comments

ArchPundit June 2, 2003 No Comments

With all of the movement in the Senate Race, the Cattle Call fell behind. So leave comments for the weekly (I swear) cattle call–who is up, who is down in both parties.

Where is Captain Stubbing?

ArchPundit June 2, 2003 No Comments

In a bad TBN based movie

Also with Paul Rodriguez and Barney Miller!

Torture Lawsuit

ArchPundit May 30, 2003 No Comments

Madison Hobley is suing the City of Chicago, six police detectives, and former Police Commander John Burge for torture including "beating Hobley and placing a plastic bag over his head to cut off his air supply in an unsuccessful effort to get him to confess."

Mere coercion does not violate the text of the self-incriminatio

ArchPundit May 30, 2003 No Comments

Steve Chapman points out the absolute idiocy of the most recent US Supreme Court concerning self-incrimination

Two police officers stopped and frisked Martinez, a farm worker, while looking for drug activity. They found a knife in his waistband, a struggle ensued, and one of the officers shot him five times. One bullet tore into his face, permanently blinding him. One shattered his spine, paralyzing his legs for life. Three hit him in the leg.

After being placed under arrest, he was rushed by ambulance to an emergency room. But his wounds were just the start of his ordeal. Yet another officer, Sgt. Ben Chavez, went along to the hospital and proceeded to pelt Martinez with questions about the incident, even as doctors and nurses labored furiously to keep him alive. Several times they asked the cop to leave the room, but each time, he came back, turned on his tape recorder and resumed his interrogation.

Bleeding from multiple wounds, choking, unable to move, occasionally losing consciousness, in excruciating pain and afraid he was dying, the patient twice told Chavez he didn’t want to talk–even though the officer hadn’t bothered to inform him of his Miranda rights, and even though he feared he might be denied treatment for refusing. But not until 45 minutes later, when the medical team wheeled Martinez out to undergo a CAT scan, did Chavez finally conclude his questioning.

You would assume this sort of mistreatment, verging on deliberate torture, would be a flagrant violation of Martinez’s constitutional rights. But we learned in a decision issued Monday that the Supreme Court doesn’t see it quite that way. "Martinez’s allegations fail to state a violation of his constitutional rights," wrote Justice Clarence Thomas, including his 5th Amendment right against forced testimony.