Wow. I understand that fits really nicely in your world model that unifies economics and morality, but that's not how the world works at all.
Borrowers are not always rational or informed. Most people go into debt because they spend beyond their means, not because they're leveraging short term capital. Payday lending is illegal in some states and a felony in Georgia. This guy made $70 million off poor people, pushing a large number of them further into debt, and you're calling that the measurement of his goodness?
You have a very arrogant world view. You are assuming you know what's better for a borrower (call him B) than he does himself. You or the government don't have all the facts surronding B's situation, only B does.
B is the only one who is qualified to make decisions that only affect him. How can you possibly think that taking options away from B is a good idea? Options that you or I may think are stupid shouldn't be taken away from B, just because we don't see how they are useful to him.
I think that payday lending shouldn't be illegal - as long as an action doesn't involve any non-consenting parties (theft, violence, fraud, etc), it should be legal (in my view).
> B is the only one who is qualified to make decisions that only affect him. How can you possibly think that taking options away from B is a good idea? Options that you or I may think are stupid shouldn't be taken away from B, just because we don't see how they are useful to him.
Ok, so for example you support B's right to sell himself into slavery if he feel that that is the correct course of action?
>You have a very arrogant world view. You are assuming you know what's better for a borrower (call him B) than he does himself.
We're talking about the kinds of dumbasses who take out payday loans. Arrogant or not, he probably does know what's better for the borrower than the borrower does himself.
On a very slight tangent: Do you think that the truthfulness of advertising should be regulated?
And then back on topic: Is there a significant moral difference between outright lies in advertising, and specifically marketing to a certain percentage of the market who you expect to miss-understand a technically truthful advert?
Like many issues, the real problem is the education system.
Perhaps if inner city public schools were more like schools and less like prisons we would not have significant parts of the population lacking rudimentary critical thinking skills, and we would not have to worry about entire segments of the financial system existing solely to exploit them.
He didn't force anyone to do anything - his customers voluntarily chose to deal with his business. He offered a service that was in demand and was paid a fee for it.
Borrowers are not always rational or informed. Most people go into debt because they spend beyond their means, not because they're leveraging short term capital. Payday lending is illegal in some states and a felony in Georgia. This guy made $70 million off poor people, pushing a large number of them further into debt, and you're calling that the measurement of his goodness?