Payday loans can be a swell deal—if you need the money right away and no one else will lend to you.

If the government is no longer willing or able to print “legal tender for all debts public and private,” then they should offer the poor and near-poor a successor product. The free post office savings accounts I have advocated could include debit cards. In the past, I would have limited free debit card transactions to a small number each month, but the idea behind cashless stores seems to be that no transaction is too small for cards.

Currency for the poor and vulnerable should not be left in the hands of the sort of market intellectuals who think payday loans are a swell deal.

A lot of small “ethnic” restaurants work this way, too. You ring up your order and then present the paper receipt to the counter to get your food. This prevents the cashier from not ringing the order because the cook won’t prepare an order without a receipt; you now need to get two people to conspire to steal from the boss–much harder. Not to mention the printer order gets clipped to an “order wheel”.

As usual, the big chains will be all for this because it will make it even harder on the small mom and pop outfit.

I don’t know that that’s having fun with Hans Bader. I think his point is that, like many government do-gooding things, society isn’t benefited and juiced-in people wind up making millions in government guaranteed money.

Nice work if you can get it.

Our taxes pay for:

Bad wars
Caging children
Abortions (not a bad thing for some people)
Adoptions (not a bad thing, but just saying)
Correcting erectile dysfunction
Presidents playing golf
Crooked elections
Bridges to nowhere (although I think this one was deleted)
“Protection”/security at the Super Bowl
“Protection” at college football games (for coaches of State schools)
Shooting innocent people in Houston, Little Rock, Sacramento, etc.
LGBTQ marriages
Jailing marijuana users for decades