 |
| "WE MUST PROTECT THE CITY OF LONDON" UK PRIME MINISTER RT. HON. DAVID CAMERON MP |
LOAN SHARKS
PAY-OFF ALL THE LOANS
The pay-day lenders' PR machines are working overtime to fight off the Christian's threat. On TV news last night an anonymous, "randomly selected" lady shopper made a good case for WONGA loans at 5,000%, saying in effect "I've found payday borrowing very useful - And it never did me any harm."
Unlike the true-life story I tell of a "Journeyman" backstreet moneylender seeking tax advice from us in 1960, the interviewed TV lady presumably never had one of her hands nailed to her back door by a loan-shark, to remind her to pay on his return. This psychopathic black-belt karate expert charged a crippling, evil 30% - just about the limit of what an English Court would then accept before clapping him in irons. His "customers" were working class housewives home alone all day while their men were at work. We did not take him on as a client.
5% CAP - The loan-shark "industry" justifies its usurious charges because of the percentage of defaults. It does not seem to occur to anyone that if the rate was 5% (ten times Base Rate) instead of 5,000% then borrowers would default less. The industry does of course thrive on defaults and roll-overs to extort their highest charges and lock in the most profitable "regular customers" at the limits of the borrowers'' endurance. Slavery and Indentured labor was easier and kinder for the victims. Today's locked in victims are bled dry for decades in a depressed, living hell - with the whole of the Justice System and its enforcers ranged against them. There is no escape. It is a life-sentence.
Today's newspapers reveal that many "respectable" investment houses have fueled payday lenders; including The Welcome Trust that pitched in a $100 million investment - then two months later the Welcome employee who made the investment moved to WONGA and is now heading up WONGA's global expansion, starting with India - targeting hundreds of millions of the poorest people on Earth. Will the combined world religions urge their 5 billion strong congregations to get angry and stop this evil?
I wrote last year to Sir Mervyn King, head of the Bank of England, asking him to take over all UK payday loan accounts, about $1.7 billion, and re-lend to the borrowers at 5%. Then withdraw all loan-shark licenses. The City and Wall Street would barely notice such a small amount - being just one-tenth of their annual bonuses. The relief to suffering, bullied families would be a major triumph for Christian Charity and Love thy Neighbor - at no cost to the nation. But we, We The People, do all prefer to have low-caste people to bully and hate - to pay less than a Living Wage and pursue into penury.
Do the maths - as Americans say - if ALL loans from mortgages to credit cards to payday are capped at 5% APR, then because of the multi-layered sandwich of financing supply chains being ten-steps on average, ALL consumer prices, from homes to breakfast cereals, would fall by 25%. The "losers" would be those who rely on The Price of Money at its present ludicrously expensive levels. The money-economy, the paper-economy, the simple recording of transactions in the real-economy is a vast burden and drain on our productivity, siphoning away the life blood of the world - including the illicit frozen $32 trillion (80 million ten year jobs) in tax-havens.
THE WORLD, THE MONEY-ECONOMY, URGENTLY NEEDS TO DISCOVER ITS MORAL COMPASS. WE NEED HEROES LIKE JUSTIN WELBY, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. MAYBE POPE FRANCIS WILL STAND UP AND BE COUNTED - WHERE ARE THE ALL THE OTHER RELIGIOUS, ETHICAL AND MORAL PEOPLE? COUNTING THEIR INVESTMENT DIVIDENDS FROM WONGA PERHAPS?
A 5% CAP is a good thing. Sign this petition:
STELLA CREASY MP – CAMPAIGN AGAINST LOANSHARKING.
http://www.workingforwalthamstow.org.uk/
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete