Pentagon on HIGH ALERT Concerning Predatory Lending!

This week the Center for Responsible Lending highlighted the Department of Defense's recommendations calling on Congress to lower the interest rates made to military personnel. The DOD wants a 36% cap on annual interest rates for loans to military borrowers. This cap would include extra fees and charges or products like credit insurance premiums. Adding to all the deaths and casualties currently suffered in Iraq, the DOD is also wrestling with predatory lending that negatively impacts 17% of miliatry service persons. This is good news~in that we need more pressure on legislators to curb predatory lending.

And local community activist Chuck Mehan agrees. He will be on the air Thursday, September 28, to talk with me about this major development and how predatory lending harms Tennesseans, especially seniors. Indeed, Mehan is the S.A.L.T. (Seniors And Law Enforcement Together) go-to guy in the City of East Ridge.

I'll ask Mehan about payday lending and title deed practices locally. Just last week, USA Today reported that "payday lending has become a $40 billion annual business (in loan volume) with more than 22,000 U.S. outlets, according to the Community Financial Services Association of America, the industry's trade group. By comparison, Starbucks has 8,624 U.S. locations and McDonald's about 14,000."

Unfortunately, getting a loan quickly often sounds too good to be true for people down on their luck. You get processed in 15 to 20 minutes with no credit checks. And bang, you're holding as much as $1,000 in your pretty little hand.

For years, predatory lenders ~ which include payday loan sharks, pawn shops, title deed lots, rent-to-own stores, and "refund anticipation loan" fronts ~ have done almost whatever they want in Tennessee and Georgia, gouging the low-income and elderly with outrageously high interest rates (from 300% to 1,000% annually). But that changed in Georgia 2004 and 2005, despite a strong challenge by out-of-state banking institutions supporting loan sharks.

According to the Center for Responsible Lending, the state of Georgia took legislative action and passed The Georgia Act which "caps small consumer loans at Georgia's small loan usury rate of 60 percent per year, adds stiff criminal and civil penalties for violators, and bars non-bank lenders from partnering with banks to avoid Georgia's usury laws."

We'll Tennessee have the courage to change our lending laws too?

Today~Gayle Swann Provides "A Helping Hand"

With gas prices above $2 per gallon and public transportation nonexistent in many smaller cities in the Greater Chattanooga area, some people are left without a way to get around or without someone to assist them. Especially seniors. Gayle Swann wants to help. Although she will not solve the bigger problem of public transportation, she is providing a service that will help make a dent in its absence.

Today at 12:30, on WNOO (1260 AM), I will interview Gayle Swann, just recently retired educator and now owner of a small business called A Helping Hand--a personalized transportation and assistance service for individuals (especially seniors) in the greater Chattanooga area. I'll talk with Gayle about her past work as a teacher and her present choice to transport and assist people, about raising a family and retiring to open her own business, and about her interest in helping seniors in our area.

Here's a plug for Gayle: If you know anyone needing transportation or help with grocery shopping or other tasks out and about, here are Gayle's business numbers are 423-622-2413 or 423-762-0715. I want to thank Gayle for agreeing to come on WNOO today with me.

ON THE AIR~John Bailes Hosts New Talk Show

I will host a new radio talk show reaching out to those who normally do not get heard. The show is called Work & Family and it will air on WNOO 1260 AM tomorrow.

Work & Family will air every Thursday at 12:30 - 1:00 p.m. The talk show will focus on working people and how they experience every day life--whether they be small business people, teachers, nurses, hotel or wait staff, janitors, etc. The show will explore how working people struggle or succeed at work and family, people who work one or two or three jobs, who own their home or rent, who have gone through a bankruptcy or made a bundle, who earn above or below a living wage, and who may or may not have health insurance.

I have invited one of my brothers as my first guest. My youngest brother, Scott Bailes, happens to be in Chattanooga on a short visit from Irapuato, Mexico. He is a missionary serving God in this Mexican city of a half-million people. I will ask my brother to share his thoughts on work and family in Mexico and how a better understanding of Mexico could lead Americans to a more humane immigration policy.