birdog1960

exactly. and they have evolved to the point where they are comprised of actual legislators (see oliver's bit on the texas legislature).

$800/yr per capita in mass. by one estimate. it's a tax on the poor, in essence. it does have the redeeming feature that funds are generally spent on public works eg schools. but citing another wrong doesn't change the argument against payday loans.

gotta hand it to the canadians for their egalitarianism: they're starting this program in oakville

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-john-oliver-hbo-payday-loans-sarah-silverman-20140811-story.html. this is exploitation, pure and simple. it's become a very typical american trait. and it's easiest to attack the weakest. it's also the most distasteful and unseemly. to riff on la's pleasantly surprising theme: a little collective conscience would go a long way here.

in which camp do the palestinians fall?

wow. i need to document this before you change your mind and delete it.

reasonable regulation would be a happy medium here. the fact that they ripped you off for 1k speaks for itself. the business model of most of these companies relies on churning the loans. the data shows that they are very successful at it. conditions should be enforced that allow the ethical companies to continue and the outright thieves to disappear. oliver stated that there are more payday lender locations than mcdonalds and starbucks combined. i think this points to a more fundamental problem in our economy.

it's about time. we'll see if the insider lobbyists are able to stop this attack on legalized loan sharking: http://finance.yahoo...-201715917.html. john oliver effect again. rock on john! if you haven't seen his bit on this, you should.

the difference in terms is irrelevant because there's massive inequality in both and one exacerbates the other. they are synergistic. they both are deleterious to the economy as a whole.

novel approach. deny basic, well documented truths that don't fit your belief system. seems a nearly unique characteristic of the far right.

carl icahn, that well known socialist, leftist sees this issue as a problem: http://finance.yahoo.com/tumblr/blog-the-bottom-line-by-carl-icahn-144555632.html

i actually get it clearly. has happened twice to me and once involved decent sized trees. i wasn't there to see it happen but the guy had firewood stacked from the trees. when i confronted him he said he was trying to improve his view as if that made it ok. didn't turn into a fight but he apologized. second time it was scrub trees on my property that helped hide a new construction house. the contractor asked me if he could fill a sink hole abutting both properties with rocks he had excavated but then goes and back fills over it taking down the scrub trees and the "green fence" in the process. people nowadays take what they think they can get away with and rarely ask permission. both of these guys knew they stepped over the line but they weighed the rewards against the potential consequences and went ahead. your approach makes perfect sense to me. sadly, direct confrontation seems the only way.

pestana palace hotel for a meal since it sounds like you'll be in downtown lisbon. once again, a repurposed former royal palace. the grounds are pretyy spectacular and the one meal we had there was impressive. doubt you can legally bring home the ham but i'm not sure. some good port is worth bringing back and is a real bargain. also ceramic kitchenware if your wife is into that. i carried a hand painted cake dish all the way home once,...on second thought, forget about the ceramics. oh, and have fun!

so i guess the answer to your "shunned away" question is YES.

yeah, it's one thing to talk about killing 100's of innocent kids and entirely another to talk about stuff like this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/09/circ_n_956086.html

argue the point. for multiple pages, you and others here contend that there isn't media bias. bias in movies and tv was even more casually dismissed. how can that be so when a threatened blacklist against those speaking out against israel in the industry is plausible?

i didn't skip over anything. the fact that there is even the threat of a blacklist and that pro israel ownership and management has that capability speaks to bias in very loud tones.

doesn't surprise me that you think blacklists are a good thing. mccarthy is probably a hero of yours.

the thought police are alive and well: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/stars-face-hollywood-backlash-war-723613. but there's no media bias in this war....

iraq? are you kidding me? we're trying to fix what we broke. i was against breaking it in the first place. and i don't think it's a stretch to imagine israel was a consideration in that war.http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/sharon-says-u-s-should-also-disarm-iran-libya-and-syria-1.18707 in regards to military aid to other countries, 50% of all of our foreign military aid goes to israel. doesn't seem prudent does it? let's bring a bit of scale and proportion into the debate. oh, and the first link is from more than a year ago. i also started a thread titled " no devils left in hell' in regards to syria. i think it could be categorized as railing.

i'm just wondering how libertarian leaning people can justify even 1 billion dollars in foreign military aid while simultaneously complaining about any money spent on domestic entitlement programs. https://www.humanrig..._Fact_Sheet.pdfhttp://www.huffingto..._n_4005550.html that took all over 30 seconds. i'm sure there's more.

the us isn't sending assad billions of dollars for weapons. and i don't see anyone defending him, on the right the left, in europe or the us.

on cursory review, the numbers match up pretty well. i didn't take the time to figure in inflation. neither did the fed of american scientists, my link did. at any rate, it's a ridiculously large amount and out of scale to any other nation.

we don't give 50% of our foreign military aid to any of them. the aid given to nearly any other single entity is spit in the ocean in comparison to israeli military aid. (and we allow them to purchase their own home produced munitions - something no other aided country is allowed)

how bout you cite a source that refutes these aid figures?