Payday Loans Industry Victimized By Bogus Study (Pt. 1)

“Usury Law & The Christian Right” | Meyers’ Critique

A few months ago, I posted my brief review of the academic paper “Usury Law and the Christian Right: Faith Based Political Power and the Geography of the American Payday Loan Regulation.” I did this because authors Stephen Graves and Christopher Peterson have a lot of interesting things to say about the payday loan industry, much of it unintentionally counter to their intended purpose of showing that payday loans are damaging to the public. In fact, payday loans promote free market competition and are embraced by the very value set - the Christian right - that the authors claim are against the consumer loan product.

A new, more detailed critique of Graves and Peterson’s work has appeared in the blogosphere, written by Lawrence Meyers. Entitled “Usury Law & The Christian Right: A Critique,” Meyers points how Graves and Peterson’s work is “filled with false and misleading statements, faulty premises, empty hypotheses, weak methodology and completely unjustified conclusions.” Meyers even goes for far as to say that he is “flabbergasted that the paper was published in Catholic University's Law Review.”

No academic objectivity

Clearly, the authors are biased against payday loans. Their use of pejorative language undermines any academic credibility Graves and Peterson might pretend to have on the matter. It is not an objective report. Meyers shows how the authors describe payday loan industry defenders as “apologists” [p.2,7]; that payday loan companies “poured into American neighborhoods like water over a breached dam” [p.25]. Regarding the number of payday loan stores, there is also no attempt at academic objectivity: “For those who are concerned about the social, moral, and even spiritual well being of the lower and moderate income Americans, this is a profound, unprecedented, and troubling change in the American nation.” [p.26] ... click here to read the rest of the article titled "Payday Loans Industry Victimized By Bogus Study (Pt. 1)"