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Elizabeth Strother

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I've been pondering the cover story in the June issue of Seapower magazine about payday loan victims among military personnel -- "particularly those in the lower ranks."

And with last week's news fresh in my mind of two young American soldiers -- private first classes -- abducted and killed, possibly tortured, in Iraq, I am angry.

Low-level service people make up a particularly rich niche for the payday loan industry, the magazine article informs me: "... They usually have a steady government paycheck with little to spare at an average of $1,200 a month for new recruits. Military families gearing up for deployment face extra expenses at home and abroad and are especially vulnerable to the promise of quick cash from payday lenders."

So. Military service makes America's young volunteers prime targets on any battlefield where the United States chooses to engage its armed forces, a risk the Iraq war makes brutally clear. And their service makes military personnel prime targets for the predatory payday loan industry back home. How shameful.

A government prepared to ask so much of them owes them better.

Of course, they, like civilian counterparts who get ensnared in revolving payday loans, do not have to get sucked in. People take out the loans, which typically are offered as cash advances against a borrower's next paycheck, because they want to. They need a quick financial fix. Payday loan companies won't turn them down and, by gosh, those outfits are just so convenient. They're everywhere, on Main Street and online.

Moderate-income borrowers can get mired in debt, though, when payday comes and they can't cover all their expenses plus pay off the loan. They might take out another, then another, again and again, until they are hopelessly buried under small loans costing them an average annual interest rate of about 400 percent.

This is what passes for business ethics in America these days. Other people's needs are your opportunity. And if satisfying the immediate need only leaves people more desperate and needing your service again and again, well that's their fault. They are free to make their own decisions. They should have figured out the ramifications for themselves.

Sounds like reasoning a crack dealer could love, come to think of it. But payday lending is, of course, legal in Virginia and most other states. No one is breaking any laws.

So let's change the laws.

The ramifications of poor decisions almost always ripple through society. And in the case of military personnel trapped by predatory lenders, the ripple reaches the nation's level of military preparedness.

Seapower reports that the number of sailors and Marines who lost or were denied security clearances because of financial problems jumped from 124 in 2000 to 1,999 in 2005 -- of a total for the six years of 5,482. A geographic study of payday loan outlets, meanwhile, shows clusters around military bases.

Nationwide, "The number of predatory lending outlets has doubled since 2000," the magazine reports, "and 91 percent of all loans are made to people who take out five or more loans per year, according to NMCRS briefing charts on payday lenders."

The reference is to the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society, a charitable organization ready and able to give loans and financial advice to people in service. Yet, the society reports, active-duty service members are three times more likely than civilians to turn to payday lenders, apparently for fear of endangering their jobs if they make their financial woes known.

Now, I don't read Seapower just routinely. In fact, I had never heard of it before this month. It's published by the Navy League of the United States, a civilian organization I also had never heard of before.

The magazine's June cover story came to me by way of Irene Leech, an associate professor at Virginia Tech and, for about 10 years now, the president of the Virginia Citizens Consumer Council.

I wrote a column a few months back about payday lenders, whose predations on the poor I despise. But, I argued, people who are barely scraping by can need cash advances when faced with a real emergency and nowhere else to turn. Rather than try to ban these quick cash artists in Virginia, state lawmakers should put them under tighter regulatory controls.

Within the week, Leech took me to task. In an e-mail, she admonished: "Instead of taking the easy way out of a stressful situation and getting a payday loan, most consumers would be better off being forced to look at more difficult options, such as selling something or working extra hours.

"... North Carolina has outlawed payday loans after realizing how much damage they caused individual families and local economies."

After reading the Seapower piece, I'm about ready to jump onboard.

Elizabeth Strother is on the editorial board of The Roanoke Times.