Usury

The place I went this morning with that check was one of those check cashing places, where you can get payday loans. (I didn't really want to be anywhere near my bank with that check, I really didn't want them doing something stupid like depositing it in my account or something.)

Anyway, this place charges 414% interest on payday loans. (414%!)

There was a guy that came in to pay down $2000 of his $5000 balance. While I was sitting waiting for Kate to come out of school I thought about that a little. The guy was paying something like $60 a day in interest. (That's larger than any per diem I would get for travel in the US.) Now he's down around $36, which still seems like way to much money to be burning through.

To top it off, he seemed to be a neighbor of one of the people working there. They seemed to be on friendly terms. It seems odd, you'd think there would be some sort of tension or awkwardness there, but there didn't seem to be. ("You work at the place that charges me more in interest than I could spend in gas driving around all day, how are things?")

I'm just glad that the only thing I have ever had to do with one of those places is walking in today to see what would happen with that check.