Debbie Wasserman-Schultz scarfs up $$$ from industry Google bars from advertising

[cali]

Yep, you guessed it: Payday lenders.

Imagine that, a multinational with more scruples than our Debs.


Imagine you find yourself in a bit of a financial crisis: Rent is due but your car broke down a few weeks ago, eating up few hundred dollars. Now you’re short. You know your family and friends can’t help, so you type the phrase “can’t make rent” into your browser, to see if the Internet has any wisdom to share. You start seeing ads for companies that say they can help. After quickly typing in your information, a company offers you a $500 loan. Painless! But a few weeks later, you can’t pay it back. You spend more money to push back the due date, and now you’re getting solicited by other lenders too, encouraging you to take out another loan if you’re feeling financially squeezed.

It’s a stressful—but totally plausible—scenario, and one that Google is trying put an end to.

On Wednesday, the search engine announced that it would ban ads for payday lenders (and similar services) starting on July 13. In a statement, David Graff, the company’s director of global product policy wrote:

We will no longer allow ads for loans where repayment is due within 60 days of the date of issue. In the U.S., we are also banning ads for loans with an APR of 36 percent or higher. When reviewing our policies, research has shown that these loans can result in unaffordable payment and high default rates for users so we will be updating our policies globally to reflect that.
Graff added that the new policy “is designed to protect our users from deceptive or harmful financial products,” and will still leave room for companies to advertise mortgages, car loans, student loans, and credit cards.

<snip>
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/05/google-payday-loan-ads/482340/

[cali]

1. Democratic Party Chairwoman Faces Attacks from Left Over Payday Lending

Florida’s small-dollar lenders thought they had a political patron in Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, the Florida congresswoman who heads the Democratic National Committee. Instead they are proving how dangerous it has become for Democrats to cross their liberal wing on financial regulation.

A straightforward signal of support for an industry that has long had friends on both sides of the aisle in Florida has turned into a national political liability for Wasserman-Schultz. Her primary opponent has seized on the issue as a new and welcome vulnerability, while liberal groups have exploded over her backing for legislation that would bar new rules on small-dollar lending.

Those campaigning against Wasserman-Schultz are working to clear the way for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the new regulator created by the 2010 law overhauling lending regulation, to issue the first-ever federal rules on payday lending. Liberal activists now have the tantalizing prospect of winning a long battle against payday lending — and swatting down a top Democrat in the process.

“If the Congresswoman wants to demonstrate her commitment to the hardworking men and women of this country that payday lenders prey upon each day, she can start by withdrawing her support for this problematic legislation,” a group of liberal organizations including Allied Progress and the Center for Responsible Lending wrote in an open letter last week.

<snip>
http://www.insidesources.com/democratic-party-chairwoman-faces-attacks-from-left-over-payday-lending/

[tom_kelly]

6. Where do these lenders

get the money to lend? I'm pretty ignorant here. Do they borrow from the Fed at a ridiculously low rate and loan it out at 200%? Thanks.

[cali]

7. That is a great question

I scurried off to find the answer but no joy yet.

[Mosby]

12. 40 to 50% of the funding comes from big banks

the rest is probably hedge funds, pension funds, private equity funds etc.

http://public-accountability.org/2010/09/the-predators-creditors/

[cali]

14. Thanks!

[Omaha Steve]

20. FIRE DWS! Donate to Democratic Underground for Tim Canova FL-23 here

Donate to Democratic Underground for Tim Canova FL-23 here: https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/du4timcanova

[tk2kewl]

2. "do no evil" unless you are the DNC

[cali]

4. Legalized loan sharking protected by the powerful

[cali]

3. A Moral Case for Putting a Stop to Payday Lending Abuses

https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2016/04/14/moral-case-putting-stop-payday-lending-abuses

[Duval]

5. K&R for exposure.

[dorkzilla]

8. K&R for exposure

[AZ Progressive]

9. Payday Lenders are basically financial enslavers

Looking to enslave vulnerable Americans. People that the Democratic Party should NOT associate themselves with unless they want to go back to pre-civil war Democratic Party.

[cali]

10. Loan sharks bribing lawmakers

[jwirr]

16. I heard that DWS husband is a banker. That is probably why

she was into it for them.

[Rex]

11. She loves predatory capitalism, so she must go.

The time for Grifters is long past us, we need leaders that care about the people...not look at them like numbers in a line.

[Jackilope]

13. She is symbolic of all that contaminates Democratic Party

That she and Hillary are BFFs should raise red flags.

[Ferd Berfel]

17. What Jackilope Said!

[silvershadow]

18. Like it or not, this party is gong through a fundamental shift. Those people on the

fringes, such as Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, may well find themselves out of a job (which is my hope), and if we are really smart, Bernie will become President, cutting off her expected (and in fact, probably promised) Cabinet job. A two-fer! All she will have left is lobbying, though I suspect a President Sanders will be putting the squeeze on that entire "industry" which much of is destroying our Democracy from within.

[Uncle Joe]

19. They used to call them "loan sharks."

Thanks for the thread, cali.