There’s an interesting documentary series on Netflix titled Dirty Money. Each episode explores an issue relating to corporate greed. I’m not recommending the whole series (the first episode takes a low blow at The Donald for pulling us out of the Paris Climate Agreement), but the second episode is about a payday loan scandal with some larger implications.
The Scandal
Wealthy elitist Scott Tucker created an umbrella company under the ownership of a Native American tribal chief from Oklahoma. He did this to avoid state laws. The chief agreed to lend his name to this company in exchange for a whopping 1% of profits without having to do anything. All of the payday loan companies under the umbrella company operated out of Kansas and took customers from the internet. When angry customers called the offices employees there said they were located in a reservation in Oklahoma.
Scott Tucker with one of the race cars taken from him after he was found guilty
The payday scam is simple. If a guy takes a payday loan for $500 he’ll have to payback a ridiculous amount like $650. The guy knows that and takes the hit. What he doesn’t know is that the loan company is going to take $75 every two weeks from his account to “hold the loan,” none of which counts toward the $650 he’s willing to pay. After two months the loan company starts taking the $75 to “hold the loan” plus $100 of principal and an additional $30 service fee.
In the lawsuit brought against Tucker the prosecution was able to show that the loan agreements the loan-takers were seeing were extremely misleading. Customers did not know they were making all those payments to “hold the loan”, none of which paid off the principal. That’s one of the reasons Scott Tucker was ultimately tried and convicted to 16 years in prison and why Scott’s brother, who hired everyone who worked at the loan companies, committed suicide.
Where’s The “Free Market” Solution?
The “free market” is a myth and payday loans demonstrate that. Free market capitalism expects a competitor to disrupt the payday loan market by offering people a better product. That’s especially true in the age of the internet. If a payday loan company just charged a guy $650 for his $500 loan without all of the hidden charges and misleading agreements that company would be preferable to consumers and still be wildly profitable. But that company doesn’t exist.
One of the things Scott Tucker repeated several times was that his loan companies were just doing the industry standard. The entire industry did it. If there were a free market a competitor would have changed that. If such a competitor does exist, and it isn’t changing the industry, you would have to ask why not. If the market were free people would choose the simpler, better reviewed, cheaper loan business. Yet people still go to the scammers. Either way it just demonstrates that wealthy elites are rigging the game against common guys.
We don’t have a market that competes for your consumer dollars. We have a market that encourages business to coordinate their practices to get as much money from consumers as possible. That’s not a free market.
The Argument For Payday Loans
Business sympathizers argue that payday loan companies fill a void in the market. People are willing to pay the rates. They are providing a service that people want. If consumers can’t be responsible enough to read and decipher their contract agreements they shouldn’t do business with payday loan companies.
What payday loan companies do is legal, they say. Because it is legal and fills a void in the market, loan companies do more good than harm.
The Argument Against Payday Loans
Payday loan companies make their loan agreements purposefully deceitful. Because only poor people need payday loans, and because poor people aren’t always the brightest people, payday loan companies essentially prey upon the poor by making them poorer.
The polite way of saying that poor people are dumber is to say that they haven’t received enough education to genuinely comprehend the agreements they are signing. Either way of saying it is true. When it’s all said and done, the rich have become richer and the poor have become poorer.
Divorce Rape
Replace “deceitful loan agreements” with “divorce rape” and you have similar arguments for and against the legality, or at least the morality, of divorce rape.
Divorce rape serves a purpose: it ensures that women who stayed at home to be a housewife during marriage are supported after divorce, since they couldn’t develop a career while being a housewife. Divorce rape is legal. When men enter in to marriage they are willing to take the risks of being divorce raped. Divorce rape is a legal right people (women) want. If a man isn’t responsible enough to hire a lawyer and get a pre-nup he shouldn’t try to have a nuclear family.
Or…
Divorce rape is a purposefully deceitful practice. Women can cry abuse and take advantage of the system. They can say that they were unable to develop a career even if the husband encouraged them to do so. None of that is written in to law. On the altar, both parties swore til death do them part, yet they aren’t dead and they are parting. This is misleading, especially to the “uneducated.” Divorce rape preys on trusting men. When it’s all said and done a bad wife can live the good life off the husband’s work while a good husband’s life is diminished to financial enslavement.
The Moral Dilemma
The question I ask myself when I think about things like payday loans or divorce rape is simple: “What sort of world do I want to inhabit?” I don’t want to live in a world were the rich get richer because the poor are desperate. I don’t want to live in a world where hard-working men can lose everything because their ex-wife lied to a judge about spousal abuse.
The argument that because something is legal it is right to take advantage of it is a poor argument. Legal does not equal moral. If you are in the middle class and a poor family goes homeless while a rich family gets a few thousand dollars, is your world better or worse? You might think it is unchanged, until you wake up to realize that you now live in a third-world slum.
Payday loans might not seem like they effect you, and maybe they don’t directly, but the moral dilemma behind them effects all men, because men can and do rule this world. Right now it’s the global elite men, but maybe one day it won’t be.
For more from Jared Trueheart on the roles of men and women in literature and film check out his writing at Legends of Men.
Read More: The “Free Market” Is A Myth
The (((moneylenders))) are up to their usual tricks again. How convenient. What do you think Accident Man?
I always tell people who want to get into politics and “influence decisions” that politics and money are like a chess game and we normies are not even part of it as we don’t have characters in the game.
The author sounds like a goddam communist.
J/K.. sort of. But the sad truth is we live in a dog-eat-dog world, and it’s been that way since time immemorial.
Communism or ‘free’ market capitalism it matters not. (((Those))) that hold the power will manipulate it so they remain in dominating control. The serfs remain divided squabbling over the name of their oppressive system.
SASQUATCH
The West is so corporate now that it is basically communism anyhow.
A dog eat dog world is a third world nation…first world nations have a population of nationalistic people who use the government to implement common sense regulations like consumer protection, transparency laws, ban predatory practices, and they are also people willing to pay for public services that everyone can use and have access to, not just the rich. A well regulated economy where the people are in charge of the government is the only way to truly create a system of merit and honor where ACTUAL good and hardworking people win. Libertarianism, Communism, Marxism, Democratic Socialism, Minarchism, etc etc are just purity ideologies that don’t take human nature or reality into account, and the people who associate with these ideologies are typically cult like in their mentality.
Wes the Great, So would you want the government regulating the sexual marketplace the same as you want it to regulate the economic marketplace? You know, to that the poor betas have the same access to sex as alphas, and don’t get screwed over by hypergamous and unscrupulous women.
I find it ironic that on this website, almost every article on relationships encourages men to to take the “dog eat dog” approach.. be the best man you can be, drop panties at every opportunity, and don’t waste time pitying the beta soyboys who get screwed over thanks to their own weakness and stupidity. And yet, at the same time everyone here is calling for government regulation to protect those same soyboys from getting ripped off by a loan shark. It just doesn’t make sense.
You can be alpha AF and not have access to panties because dumb females make bad choices . The sexual marketplace was regulated for centuries in order to create viable offspring . Since I don’t want to play useless Troy Francis games I rip off whores instead . However for family oriented men this doesn’t solve problems only regulation does
Most people generally advocate individual rights within domains where they have a relative strength/advantage but want collective responsibility/intervention/regulation within domains where they have a relative weakness/disadvantage they can’t overcome on their own. Same is true for groups of people (family, tribe, etc.)
It’s just a clever way to be selfish hypocrite. Very few people/groups want to be entirely responsible for themselves.
Hence, an alpha-male would want a free-market sexual marketplace, but a broke person would want “common sense” wealth redistribution, a total pussy would want “common sense” gun control, a retard would want “common sense” hate speech laws, a homo would want “common sense” marriage laws, etc.
Above post was in reply to Quetzel61.
@DiscipleOfTruth…in other words people are too selfish and individualistic today…right? Selfishness, greed, narcissism is usually the hallmark of a dying society. Patriotic and nationalistic people who understand that they are a part of something bigger than just themselves are the people who create amazing nations. Dumbasses who just go around preaching about how the world should revolve around them and their desires are the scum of earth…aka, libertarians. Yes, libertarians are the worst offenders (not the only offenders) of this concept, and they are all like this. All you have to do is read their BS comments on this site to get a hint.
You lost me at “well regulated economy”.
@Technical19D…you are lost because you are a retard. We don’t have a well regulated economy right now because of people just like you…libertarian morons. Go back to your individual corner and cry your little heart out. If you really think that you are going to create some sort of sable anarchy than you are truly a fucking retard. Pretty sure the Constitution is a form of regulation.
Very interesting that there’re so few comments for a thoughtful article. Is it because the author has managed to bring attention to the hypocrisy that define the life of so many ROK readers & commentators? The same 1s who are quick to cry “divorce rape” are even quicker to push the blame on people in poverty when situations like this arise. Can’t have it both ways retards, if their situation is “on them” then don’t get mad at women who game the system; don’t hate the player, hate the game.
There were very few comments because it is only just published lol. I mean most ROK readers are against divorce-rape.
Yeah it is true. I do think however that women do exploit a system that was made to be fair but with loop-holes for things like abuse but the women then claim abuse almost as a default in divorce cases these days even though actual abuse is probably quite rare. Once you shouted at her and then she claims you were an evil abuser and shit but if the system rewarded rape you would still blame the rapist and the system. There are women who I presume are decent people. It is just sad they they many seem to not be. Women do not have biological loyalty to men as a way to stay with the tribal leader and that is not acknowledged as it should be.
Once a man is no longer useful or can be upgraded she will very often do so. Men believe women are better than that but the data is that they rarely are. Mens defences against this by nature are physical but we are stifled by an oppressive legal system that doesn’t let us be men in these situations.
Albert, “There are women who I presume are decent people.”
I thought that until my own divorce rape, then realized the woman I had loved for 30 years and had 4 children with, would do and say ANYTHING to get another $100 in the settlement. It’s a horrible truth to be faced with, and most men just won’t believe it until they have faced the cold hard reality for themselves.
JOHN
See you make me glad that I fucked up my relationship as a young man and went overseas with nothing to lose.
I too could have married my youth sweetheart and then in my 40’s right now she fucked a black man and loved his BBC and took my house, car, kids.
My daughter could have grown up into an angry Lesbian.
Good thing I saw the truth young and went to Dubai when I was 25 and stayed overseas.
What would have now. A few pictures of kids who did not want to talk to me? My money pissed away on child support for adult children that pierced their genitals and fucked the same gender? A wife that got porked by black men while I was out slaving and paying taxes for their illegitimate kids?
I am proud I never paid taxes after age 25. I never did a thing for the system.
Divorce rape occurs *because* of government regulation: In this case, the government’s coddling of the feminist-lead DV/divorce industry, which itself is born in the spawning vats of government-fed universities.
They ignore the fact that the Donald made this point very clear during the election when people brought up his bankruptcy. People are ignorant.
The reason you have this conundrum is because so many people worship their governments. You can commit so many atrocities under the disguise that it was “legal.” All the south had to do was give every black person an itemized list of expenses like religious material food, clothing, housing and adequate medical “care” and then claim that it was deducted via a court order garnishment. See? That’s not slavery. What if the Jews were given court appointed counsel saw a judge and was convicted of crimes against the state and then promptly executed that’s not war crimes that’s DUE PROCESS. When I hear experts claim that we live in a more civilized society I just laugh, we just have found more clever ways to screw people over.
NICK
If the Jews are able to wreak this kind of havoc from their coastal bubbles (NYC, Chicago, LA) on the rest of whites this is a reflection of how stupid we are.
It might also explain why Asians and even Arab-Americans are not as totally devastated as a race…they are more cunning than whites.
Let us take the porn paradigm-
The Jew is not the white trash father who abandons Stormy Daniels mother when she is 3. The Jew in porn is not the step-dad who molests her. He does not own the strip club. He simply controls the means of porn production and waits until a white trash trailer park blonde lurches from high school dropout through slutdom and drug abuse to an LA talent agency.
He’s not really responsible for white stupidity.
You shouldn’t believe in the free market for the same reasons you ahold the believe in the free sexual marketplace.
You shouldn’t believe*
Using a misleading contract in a loan scam to say “free market is a myth” shows how little you understand about economics. If you just want an excuse to not be succesful, Just admit you’re a lazy, scared little pussy.
Meanwhile the succesful guy next door to you is starting his third online business and fucking the girls you jerk off to on instagram.
@David…I think the article is implying that rich people are not always the “magical”, hardworking, and “self regulating” people that libertarians like you tend to think they are. In other words, governments and their regulations are important in making a free market system transparent, fair, and competitive. “Using a misleading contract in a loan scam…” It is only a scam if it is illegal, and being illegal means the GOVERNMENT has to make it illegal (aka government regulation/laws).
“Meanwhile the successful guy next door to you is starting his third online business and fucking the girls you jerk off to on instagram.” This has nothing to do with the argument, it is a BS exaggeration, and it is just another sleezy attack by someone with no actual logic to back his argument up with. “muh government evil, Muh regulations, Muh individualism, Muh taxes” are not logical arguments. David, you are not a Spartan Warrior “muh individual” badass bro. I doubt you know shit about economics. The free market according to you is actually anarchy, and it is bullshit. BTW, when you move out of this country, which free market economy with 2nd Amendment rights are you going to move to, lol? Funny how libertarians often leave this country for countries with even less individual rights because they are somehow better.
wes
“I think the article is implying that rich people are not always the “magical”, hardworking, and “self regulating” people that libertarians like you tend to think they are.”
and that´s why they end in jail.
Cool Article. Not an echo chamber here, on a subject that has of course been discussed on ROK. I like the new angles.
Hi Jared. Thank you for writing your article. Your history is good.
However I disagree with your understanding of some key concepts. “Free markets” are the opposite of government restricted markets. Free markets don’t necessarily have every type of business that COULD exist. Your juxtapositioning of definitions isn’t helping you. Nor is your belief that “Should” exists in some objective form. What you think “should” exist and what I think “should” exist are actually different preferred outcomes. Which is why the government doesn’t do what you think it should (or what I think it should, for that matter.).
I could argue the point, which wouldn’t help either of us.
I would suggest that if you don’t understand exactly WHY things are the way they are now, that you look deeper. The government that CLAIMS to be helping you, like a parent is even less trustworthy than the one that simply leaves you alone.
There are two groups of people that cater to the ignorant; predatory types and other ignorant types.
The rest of the people are disinterested or try to teach people to grow out of their ignorance- like a concerned parent or teacher.
We can disagree on anything, but if the government is more concerned with medical insurance and health care, but not at all concerned about prevention and education to the same degree- then one may wonder where the money trail leads.
Philosophical differences aside, I still thank you for taking the time to write your article, and look forward to more.
-Samuel
Michael Hoffman Talks About Usury
In a true free market you wouldn’t even have to pay the loan back at the cost of your credit score. But even if you did have to pay it back, by threat of force, it’s their choice to accept the terms. Why is it my responsibility to protect someone else from their own decisions!
Scott Tucker and his brother were too brave and ran their legal company alone. They could have teamed up with established bankers to give them credibility and spread the risk. Prior and during the mortgage meltdown, many mortgage firms sold out all or some of the operations to big banks and could walk away unharmed.
What Scott Tucker did is common practice. I just had money pulled out of my checking by a payment processing firm based in Ireland. They’re a darling of the VC community and are raising funds with a big splash on crunchbase. They’re crooks and hit me with ‘fees’ repeatedly. Yet, the owners do go it alone like Scott Tucker did. Hats of to him and his bravery.