What is predatory lending and how is it destroying the economy?
Predatory lending is essentially going after target demographics with promises of affluence for borrowing more than one should. We’ve seen it in the sub-prime mortgage crisis where millions of Americans were sold houses they could never hope to afford because predatory lenders convinced them that repayment would not pose a problem. The same problem exists in the student loan industry to a degree that, one could argue, is much more insidious because the target demographic is essentially kids aged 17-22. What on earth do 17 year olds know about economics, debt, earnings, compounding interest, deferrals, forbearance or any of the other hard lessons that are eventually learned the hard way years later? Promises of easy repayment schedules, advanced earning potentials, and guaranteed jobs, not only by the lenders, but by their witting accomplices in every financial aid office in every college and university in America is, in my opinion, the very definition of predatory lending.
