Mansfield-Richfield Chamber Breaks with Ohio Chamber of Commerce on Payday Lending
Kevin Nestor, the President of the Mansfield-Richland Area Chamber of Commerce wrote a letter to the Mansfield News Journal, breaking with the Ohio Chamber of Commerce on payday lending. Nestor urges a YES vote on Issue 5.
"Issue 5 asks voters whether the provisions of a new Ohio law that place new restrictions on payday lending should go into effect. These would limit the maximum loan amount to $500, give borrowers at least 30 days to make repayment and cap the annual interest rate at 28 percent."
"If Issue 5 is rejected, the maximum loan amount will remain at $800, there will continue to be no minimum repayment period and payday lenders can continue to charge fees (typically $15 per $100 borrowed for a two-week period) equivalent to a yearly interest rate of 390 percent. While there is no stronger supporter of the free enterprise system than the chamber of commerce, it is often those who can least afford such loans who seek them. Yes, many are higher risk borrowers, but fees this high are too steep a price for anyone to pay, let alone those who can least afford them. As board president, I urge your yes vote on Issue 5."
You can read the rest of Kevin Nestor's letter to the Mansfield News Journal here:
http://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/article/20081029/OPINION03/810290318
The Dayton Daily News' blistering piece about the Ohio Chamber's endorsement of predatory lending that ran back in September:
"The chamber's support of an industry that is plainly taking advantage of desperate people is embarrassing. What level of abuse does it take for the organization to be offended at how a business makes a buck?"
"Payday businesses, though they are pervasive in Ohio, are not nearly as powerful as the subprime mortgage lenders that have provoked the national housing crisis and made a weak economy even weaker. But their MO is very much the same: poor people are being targeted and preyed on and being sold a product that all too often leads to financial ruin."
"Businesses need business organizations arguing their side of issues, and speaking out against policies that ask too much of the private sector. But if the chamber expects to be taken seriously, if it wants credibility, then it has to have some capacity to be outraged when consumer and moral outrages are occurring."
"The payday industry gives free enterprise a bad name."
Read the Dayton Daily News piece here:
http://www.daytondailynews.com/o/content/oh/story/opinions/editorial/2008/09/02/ddn090208chamberxxeb.html?cxntlid=inform_sr
Let's hope there are a lot more free thinkers on November 4th! Simply because the payday lenders have spent $18 million and have the endorsement of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, doesn't mean that they are aren't peddling a defective and predatory product!
Lower interest rates on payday loans and end predatory lending in Ohio! Vote Yes on Issue 5!
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