Something to scare you

[trystinn]

Many people in the Neo-Pagan community have spoken about the allegiance between this nation's poorest people and conservative Christianity. Spoken or considered it quietly in frustrated moments. Seems a few others have noticed it, too.

Notice along the Pacific Northwest and down into Southern California the many payday loan centers. Would it shock you to know that same corridor is where many of the military bases are? Granted, its prohibited for military folks to use them but we know it happens anyway.

Comments

A Slightly Deeper Look

[woolysw.livejournal.com]

If you take the time to skim the actual article (Usury Law and the Christian Right: Faith Based Political Power and the Geography of the American Payday Loan Regulation), although their mapping of the Payday lenders is quite good, their mappings of the "Christian Right" is, at best, based on secondary assumptions and at a far more coarse granularity ("Our hope is that this index of Christian political power, which is partly derived from the data collected at the federal level, will accurately reflect the political climate of the respective states.").

And then they make statements like "Conversely, it is surprising that in many states where Evangelicals and Mormons are few, and where legislators have proven to be neither socially conservative, nor well received by Christian political organizations that scripturally inspired usury laws effectively banning payday lending remain. Only a few states fit the pattern one would expect."

And "In simple terms, this means that we can be 99% sure that about 56% of the time when the Christian Power goes up, then payday lending per capita also rises." So they can be 99% sure that there's only a 6% better chance than random flip of a coin that the two are related?

It makes me suspect their conclusions, especially since I find the tone of the article somewhat less than academically distant.