If you were perhaps of a more cynical nature, and were looking for an ideal target market for your payday loans business, how would this scenario sound to you?
How about people working in a business where the paychecks are absolutely guaranteed to come in on time each and every month, no matter what?
A business with a large, relatively immobile workforce, who tend to stay in one place for predetermined periods of time, and who will, moreover, have plenty of notice that will move, should that happen.
A business whose workforce is overwhelmingly comprised of young, who are perhaps not too worldly wise, and who are used to doing what they are told to do, when they are old to do it.
I guess that, were you that somewhat cynical payday loan company owner, this would sound pretty good to you, right?
Perhaps that is why most military bases in the USA are now almost surrounded by payday loan outlets.
At a time when ever increasing military demands are being made of young army and navy personnel by the continuing Iraq conflict, Senior Military Officers are increasingly concerned about the additional stresses on the servicemen and women caused by the prevalence of outstanding payday loans.
Whilst the payday loan companies themselves deny that they specifically target military personnel, it is hard to actually believe that to be the case, simply from looking at the concentration of payday loan outlets near most military bases.
Stories of both Army and Navy officers falling prey to such lenders are fairly easy to come by, and of course, the last thing that such soldiers, sailors and officers need at a time of war are the additional stresses placed on them by increasing debts.
In fact, the problem has now got so bad that many military bases are running training courses in responsible personal financial management, a key module of which is teaching the younger servicemen and women about payday loans.
In particular, these courses are designed to teach the students how it is probably best to avoid payday loans completely if at all possible, or, if not, how to deal with them responsibly.
Of course, this cannot get away from the fact that military personnel are no different to anyone else, and they will have times of cash flow problems, just the same as their none military counterparts.
And this is equally not saying that payday loans are of themselves a bad thing. Anyone who has used such a loan to dig themselves out of a hole will probably have no problems with payday loans, on one proviso. That is, that they paid it back in time!
Unfortunately, whether the payday loans companies concur or not, there does seem reasonable empirical evidence to suggest that perhaps they are unusually willing to extend such loans to military personnel.
Personnel whose very existence depends on them being able to concentrate 100% on the task in hand, who, perhaps morally, should not be placed under any additional external pressures.
The fact is that payday loans for military personnel are big business, and they do serve a real purpose for the beneficiaries of such loans.
However, there can be no denying that military personnel are not like other people who take payday loans, and it is good to see that the powers that be have taken this on board, and are attempting to deal with it through additional training and education.
By: steve j cowan