Thursday, August 31, 2006

Payday Lenders Target our Armed Forces

USA Today:
As many as one in five members of the armed services are being preyed on by loan centers set up near military bases that can charge cash-strapped military families interest of 400% or more, a new Pentagon report has found.

“We're seeing a growing trend of folks who are not eligible to deploy because of financial problems,” says Capt. Mark Patton, commander of Naval Base Point Loma in California. Patton says debt problems can cost some servicemembers their security clearances.

This is just brilliant. I thought soldiers were supposed to be safe on their home base.

1 comment:

James Geluso said...

I think this is a pointer to a sadder fact, that the military families are part of the working poor.

It makes me think of the comment the brother made at the CWA convention, that military members vote Republican because (they believe) the Democrats want to cut their pay, and when they get out they vote Democratic for the same reason. I wonder what it would take to convince military families that the Democrats were the party of their paycheck.