Letters to the Editor
enfueago
Published Letters: 4 Editor's Choice: 1
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In defense of lenders
[Read the article: Usury: Back and better than ever]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]No one should think using a payday lender or comparable service is a good thing to be doing. What is completely missing here is any suggestion of what people in a fix should do instead. If you need a small loan quickly and you don't have great credit (no credit card) then your options are limited. If its a choice between a small loan with bad terms or having my electricity shut off...
Most of the calculations you see for how much is paid back and what the effective interest rate is include things like origination fees -- these make up a huge percentage of a small loan but they are far less than charged by banks for larger loans. These fees look large in comparison to the loan amount but are pretty reasonable if viewed as a loan origination fee, especially ifg compared to the add ons charged for a mortgage, car financing etc. Wall Street certainly gets the concept -- what are junk bonds other than a corporate equivalent that pay far higher returns than other corporate bonds?
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wrong comparison
[Read the article: Ask Pablo]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The problem I have with this article is that it is comparing the wrong things. Bottled water is not a substitute for tap water (though obviously tap water could substitute for it) but rather a substitute for soft drinks and other bottled beverages. And I suspect that if we did a comparison of resources used with other types of bottled beverages the difference is negligible. There is certainly an argument to be made about how many prepackaged beverages of all types people drink but focusing on bottled versus tap misses the whole point about how people consume.
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water is just another beverage
[Read the article: Ask Pablo]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]To answer the question back to my post, the same idiots who prefer pepsi over coke, coke in bottles or from a fountain versus coke in a can, People buying a drink from a machine when they are out, people buying coke to drink on the move, etc. Water in bottles is simply another style of prebottled beverage and does not compete with tap water. It competes with other prebottled beverages.
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responding to e-mail not only goal
[Read the article: Barack Obama: "Committed Christian -- Called to Bring Change"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Certainly Obama's need to respond to the "secret muslim" smear campaign is one good reason to make sure he wraps himself in the church. A greater benefit from these ads though is the utilization of black churches to stimulate black voters and turnout. For blacks (especially I suspect in S.C.) the church is the biggest unifying force in the community. The black churches have a long and generally distinguished history of political action back to the fights for civil rights. Of course Obama wants to tap into this for the same reason the Clintons have always made it a point to appear in black churches. These ads aren't just designed to appeal to christians but to blacks (of any religious view) by conecting himself with the legacy of the civil rights movement. Even black voters who are not religious or are from "other" religions will, he hopes, have a positive reaction to the association. Whether many black churches get a free pass on their own extreme and intolerant views on many issues is another question...