The Cal State Northridge public relations newsletter, titled "@CSUN," usually has articles about who is retiring, who is visiting campus, who is donating money to whatever department, stuff like that. But a recent issue had a front-page story about geography professor Steven Graves and his research on "predatory payday lenders who swarm around U.S. military bases."
Wow! Support the troops indeed!
(More below the fold.)
Read the whole story titled
Professor Tracks Lenders Who Prey on Military Families on the CSUN Web site.
Highlights:
Steven Graves is nailing down nationwide locational patterns that suggest military families are increasingly the quarry of unscrupulous lenders who provide short-term loans for a fee - usually steep - due on a soldier's payday.
Graves has determined that the density of payday lenders within three miles of U.S. military bases is higher than it is around other communities, a finding that already is having policy implications at both the state and federals levels.
"Christopher [Christopher Peterson, law professor, Graves's research partner] and I have already submitted testimony to the legislature in Virginia, giving our expert opinion on their payday lending laws, and the state of Georgia has completely outlawed payday lending, " said Graves.
He determined that the area around Camp Pendleton, for example, has a density of lenders that far exceeds the statewide and national averages: some 24 were packed in within three miles of the base. Within the next three-mile band, only eight lenders were mapped. A look at one lender's business plan revealed the thinking that "three miles is about as far as people will travel to get a loan."
Support the troops! Pay them enough so their families aren't victimized by usury!