Most Recent in Politics:

1Trump’s USDA Lets Animal Abusers Off the Hook

2Texas’ Presidential Candidates Break Out Briefly During the Democratic Debate

3Texas Leads in Polling Place Closures Since 2013

4Senator Lucio Draws Serious Primary Challenge

5As Texodus Continues, Tom DeLay’s Tall Political Shadow Fades

6They Persisted

Most Recent in Environment:

1How BP Oil Spill Fines Could Help Protect the Texas Coast

2Climate Change Will Make Harmful Algae Blooms in Texas Waterways More Common

4Bridge to Nowhere

5How Texas Prairies Could Help Combat Climate Change

6Julián Castro’s Climate Plan Addresses Environmental Racism

Most Recent in Border:

1Migrants at Laredo Tent Court Tell Stories of Kidnappings and Violence While Pleading Not to Be Returned to Mexico

2The Trump Administration Blows Its Border Wall Budget in South Texas

3Journalists Blocked from Attending Secretive Immigration Tent Courts

4‘El Paso Firme’ Music Festival Calls on Texans to Peacefully Resist White Supremacy

5Thousands Have Disappeared Crossing the U.S.-Mexico Border. They Deserve to be Remembered.

6Starr County Proposes Alternative Border Wall Plan

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1‘A Watershed Moment’ for Bail Reform in Harris County

2Ken Paxton Wants ‘Ultimate Home Field Advantage’ in Felony Case

3The High Cost of Hays County’s Decision to Keep Prosecuting Low-Level Marijuana Cases

4A Poor Defense

5Texas’ New Medical Marijuana Law Doesn’t Cover Veterans Suffering from PTSD

6Death of Dog Trainer Highlights Strenuous Heat and Working Conditions at Texas Prisons

Most Recent in Education:

1The Cost of Carve-Outs

2Texas Legislature Improves Suicide Prevention in Schools, but Makes Little Progress for Adults

3Texas House Considers Free College For Students Experiencing Homelessness

4‘The Wolf is in the Henhouse’

5‘We’re Not Stupid’: Texas Teachers Take on Dan Patrick and the Legislature over Dismal Education Funding

6In Violation of Texas Law, Most High Schools Aren’t Giving Students the Chance to Register to Vote

Most Recent in Health Care:

1Some Small Texas Towns Are Declaring Themselves ‘Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn’

2American Health Care is Broken, Especially in Texas. What Can We Do About It?

3Thousands of Rape Kits in Texas Went Untested For Years. Lavinia Masters Is Ending That.

4‘My Congregation Trusts Women’: Progressive Faith Groups Counter Anti-Abortion Narratives

5A Texas Anti-Abortion Group Dramatically Missed its Family Planning Targets. Now its Founder is Suing the Federal Government for More Money.

6Molly Ivins on Universal Health Care

Most Recent in The Interview:

1If a Glacier Melts in the Arctic, the Texas Coast Feels It

2Without Transmission Lines, Renewable Energy Still has a Long Way to Go — Literally

4The Interview: Mass Resistance

5Meet Jim Allison, Texas’ Newest Nobel Laureate (and Three-Time Cancer Survivor)

6Dolores Huerta is Still Knocking on Doors and Registering Voters at 88

Most Recent in Books:

1In This Twisted Coming-of-Age Tale, the Monsters in the Closet Are Real

2Attica Locke’s New Mystery Novel Unearths East Texas Secrets

4How Earl Campbell Changed Football in Texas

5American Health Care is Broken, Especially in Texas. What Can We Do About It?

6‘The Secrets We Kept’ is a Finely-Structured Story of Secrets, Spies, and Secretaries

Most Recent in Features:

1Little Arthouse on the Prairie

2The Clothes that Make the Man

3Washington Crossing the Rio Grande

4Ghosts of the Baker Hotel

5At Home in the World

6Plight at the Museum

Most Recent in Essay:

1To Understand the El Paso Massacre, Look to the Long Legacy of Anti-Mexican Violence at the Border

2Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

3The Trouble with Yoga

4Heads in the Mud

5The Day the Windows Shook

6Women’s Work

Most Recent in Eye on Texas:

1Eye on Texas: Spike Johnston

2Eye on Texas: Loren Elliott

3Eye on Texas: Charlotte Moore

4Eye on Texas: ‘My Joyful Dance’

5Eye on Texas: Ghosts of the City

6Eye on Texas: Fiesta Protesta

Most Recent in Poetry:

1Remembering W.S. Merwin, Honorary Texan

2Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

3Houston Poet Analicia Sotelo’s Debut Smashes Latino Stereotypes

4Parallel Planes

6Poem: ‘Resistance’

Tag Archives: usury

by Forrest Wilder

A Last-Ditch Effort to Rein in Payday Loans

Wed, May 8, 2013 |

In a last-ditch effort to salvage payday loan reform, Rep. Mike Villarreal called on a recalcitrant Texas House committee to send legislation to the House....Read More

by Forrest Wilder

Payday Loan Reform Faces Uphill Battle in House

Tue, Apr 30, 2013 |

Late into the night, the payday loan industry strutted its stuff before a very friendly House committee. The hearing came just a week after the Senate passed a ...Read More

by Forrest Wilder

GOP Senator Accuses Colleagues of Being ‘Shills’ for Payday Lenders

Thu, Apr 18, 2013 |

An ugly scene erupted in the Texas Senate today, with Sen. John Carona (R-Dallas) suggesting that some of his Republican colleagues were "shills" for the payday...Read More

Rep. Tom Craddick Wants to Regulate Payday Loans

by Emily Mathis

Tue, Apr 16, 2013

It’s becoming a perennial pastime at the Texas Capitol. Former speaker of the House Rep. Tom Craddick (R-Midland) files a simple one-page bill that would clos...Read More

by Forrest Wilder

Payday Lenders Buy Themselves a Weakened ‘Reform’ Bill

Tue, Mar 19, 2013 |

At a legislative hearing this morning, state Sen. John Carona, the Dallas Republican who’s leading the payday “reform” effort in the Senate, basically sai...Read More

by Forrest Wilder

Former Rep. Vicki Truitt Gets Her Payday in the Lobby

Thu, Feb 7, 2013 |

Former legislators don't die, they come back as lobbyists quicker than you can say cha-ching! Today's profile in reincarnation is former state Rep. Vicki Truitt...Read More

A Cash Store location in East Austin

by Forrest Wilder

Major Payday Lender Condemns the Cash Store, Calls for Investigation

Fri, Dec 7, 2012 |

After we published my story on how a major Texas-based payday loan chain, the Cash Store, has found a way around new state and local rules, a representative fro...Read More

by Forrest Wilder

Payday Loan Chain Owned by Major GOP Donor Skirts Texas Law

Wed, Nov 28, 2012 |

As serendipity would have it, I had stumbled onto the latest mutant creature in the wild and wooly world of Texas payday lending. "What you've come across is re...Read More

Payday Loan Store

by Forrest Wilder

Payday Loans: A Pound of Flesh—Fees May Apply

Tue, Nov 20, 2012 |

Let’s be plain about what makes these businesses so profitable: usury. Structuring a loan to charge $130 in fees per $100 borrowed (that’s the averageRead More

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