Essay by Eric Worrall
Apparently if it wasn’t for climate change, we wouldn’t be having so much of this hot and cold weather which is stretching household finances in California.
Climate change driving demand for predatory loans, research shows
Study connects heatwaves and cold snaps to surges in payday lending, keeping people in debt and harming communities of color
Hilary Beaumont Mon 15 Apr 2024 20.00 AEST
Two competing payday loan stores stand on the corners of an intersection in south Los Angeles. An area of persistent poverty, south LA is also a banking desert where payday lenders fill the gap. Long lines form inside the stores on the first of the month, when rent is due.
Guillermina Molina, a 60-year-old retired housekeeper, visits the same Speedy Cash each month. During the summer months – which are becoming increasingly hot – she runs her air conditioner but frets about her utility bills. “It’s kind of hard because the [power bill] is coming up too high because you gotta have the air conditioner on,” Molina said.
During heatwaves, Molina’s daughter, Vanessa Vargas, checks in on her every day. “I don’t want to pull up to her house and find her [passed out] because of the heat,” she said.
Molina doesn’t have savings, so to cover her bills she takes out a $225 payday loan every month, paying $45 in interest on each loan. When she’s unable to pay back her loan on time, she’s charged extra. “There’s nothing left over,” Vargas said.
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/15/predatory-loans-heatwaves-cold-snaps
Abstract of the study;
Extreme Weather and Low-Income Household Finance: Evidence from Payday Loans
by Shihan Xie, Victoria Wenxin Xie and Xu Zhang
This paper explores the impact of extreme weather exposures on the financial outcomes of
Read more: https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/swp2024-1.pdf
low-income households. Using a novel dataset comprising individual-level payday loan
applications and loan-level information, we find that extreme temperature days—both hot and
cold—lead to surges in demand for payday loans. An increase in the number of days with
extreme heat results in an increase in delinquency and default rates and a reduction of total
credit issued, indicating a contraction in loan supply. These effects are especially noticeable for
online payday loans. Our findings highlight the heightened financial vulnerability of low-
income households to environmental shocks and underscore the need for targeted policies.
California has some of the most expensive energy in the USA because of their green energy policies.
Regardless of whether you believe in future climate catastrophes, and whether California’s climate initiatives will have a global impact, right now it would be more accurate to say that climate policy rather than climate change is creating financial hardship for low income Californians.
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Green policies are effectively a regressive tax.
Right, if the very wealthy all had to sacrifice 75% of their vast fortunes to “save the planet”- we can be sure that would be the end of net zero policies.
AFA electricity prices go in Ca, I can tell you first hand that back in 1994 I was paying 11¢-13¢/kWH. Last April the Local NoCal Utility took over our service and today those rates are 34¢-57¢/kWH. 3-4 times what they were in 1994 so not 100% increase since 2008 but 300%+ since 1994
0.13 cents in March 1994
had the same purchasing power as
0.28 cents in March 2024
Thank you for elucidating that due to inflation, the money supply is becoming worthless.
Keep voting for those people that lower your standard of living. It’s a great idea.
I find it interesting that the Bank of Canada is worried about Californians being too hot.
Do they know this?
LA Times has an article in today’s paper stating CC will cost California $12.5 Billion by 2040. That would put the cost less than what illegal aliens, crime, and homeless will cost. Evidently the state coffers can’t afford any of the above without massive tax increases. Part of the ‘plan’.
As a CA refugee myself, I can assure you that no problem in the state can ever be addressed without increased revenue. On an annual basis. Nurses and firefighters up next.
California is a financial basket case. But that’s what always happens in a one party state.
I would say this feels like the most disingenuous soft (as a baby’s bottom) science study ever, but new candidates are published daily.
If you do not believe what you are told to believe it is proof you are an anti-intellectualist or just plain stupid. (/sarc)
It isn’t so-called climate change that is impoverishing many Californians, it is the huge tax and regulatory burden imposed on Californians by an incompetent and corrupt government, led by democrats, whose agenda has nothing to do with the interests of Californians.
The destruction of California’s energy grid trying to implement Net Zero CO2 policies is why costs of electricity are going higher.
It’s not the weather. The weather is no more extreme today than it was a few years ago when prices were lower. The prices went higher because of government policies, not anything the weather has done.
I saw where Texas was issuing a Grid Alert the other day for temperatures in the 80’s F. What are they going to do when it hits 105F in a few months?
Ah, the 80s! Wish I could get some of that here in Wokeachusetts. In Boston yesterday they topped 70 for the first time since late last October. Imagine living in a refrigerator most of the year. Then when it warms up in the summer the state’s crazies come out screaming the planet is burning up and the oceans boiling.
Having grown up in Central India without air conditioning, I find it peculiar that it is regarded as a necessity in the US. My father was into well digging technology (lots of unattributed methods in UN development docs). The summer when the water table was lowest was his big time and we did not retreat to the hills.
i hear you, a long time ago I worked in a factory where the floor temperature hit 130F / 55C on hot days, and you could see clouds of steam in the air from leaky hydraulic presses. So Aircon shouldn’t be an absolute necessity in any kind of hot weather.
I eagerly await the announcement by PM Albo that forthwith no publicly paid official will remain airconditioned on his watch for the sake of the grandkiddies. That’s after the announcement that Canberrans will be going full user pays net-zero as an exemplary proof of principle to us all. Canberrans say YESSSS!
I will not hold my breath. The do as I say will never part from I do what I want.
Even at $1000 per air conditioner for the 2 billion households worldwide, that is only $2 trillion, far less than the $200 trillion estimated to stop warming by 2050.
I grew up in Kentucky with no AC and in a house with baseboard hot water heating. No vents.
20+years later Dad paid to have a whole house dehumidifier installed. Duct work added.
My Mom had had a heart attack and a double bypass. (Back in the day when you went to Texas for a bypass.)
I’m not going to go into the time before she needed a quadruple bypass and Dad had AC installed (required more vents and 3 AC “zones”) but it helped give Mom a few more years. Worth it to Dad and us.
Point being, AC and heat are good things. The cheaper it and the energy to run it is, the more people it helps.
For my Dad and he and Mom’s 8 kids, those extra years were priceless.
Fran, I grew up without AC. But now where it and/or home heating are available AND affordable, why refuse it?
Fire up all fossil fuel and nuclear generators, build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators, remove all wind and solar from the grid and get the government out of the energy business. This is not rocket science.
As a Rocket Scientist, I fully agree, although I sometimes find the use of the expression insulting – just not this time.
you get what you vote for
No, I get what they vote for.
I moved to northern CA in 2006 and PG&E’s territory. The base tier 1 rate was $0.13 per kWhr.
As of April 01, it is now $0.427 over a 300% change. So it’s no surprise that folks can afford the E-bill. [ of course all the wind and solar ‘lowers the cost…NOT !]
Then, they reduced the allowed kWhr for tier one to 306 kwhrs per month…that’s 425 watts average. Heck, my well pump uses 650 watts.!!
see the E-1 residential rate;
https://www.pge.com/tariffs/en.html#ELECTRIC%20RATE%20SCHEDULES
You and every other ratepayer are paying for PG& E’s costly fatal errors during fire seasons past…
.
Nonsense. California has special electrical rates called CARE and FERA programs for those poor immigrant families. Just show your food stamp EBT card and you’re in. Don’t qualify? Just have a few more kids, it’s easy and fun.
Shock horror!
News show accused of fuelling conspiracy theory net zero will kill ‘half the population’ (msn.com)
It’s a feel kinda thingy which you can well appreciate leftys with your dooming meme. Always remember feelings matter and need to be identified and respected by woke policymakers.
She’s wrong, of course. Net Zero will kill 75% of the population, minimum.
We’re all “people of colour”.
Albinos are people of no color
They are all colors.
All of us are shades of brown.
Except albinos, who unfortunately lack melanocytes/melanin and the protection from UV it provides.
Really wish the media racism would stop.
The rest of us should take heed of the plight of the Germans, Australians and Californians and deal with the sucking vortex of cash going somewhere else.
When I was growing up, “communities of color” were known by the term “Ghetto”.
Elvis Presley sang a song about it. “As the snow flies…” Oh wait, that doesn’t happen anymore. No wonder we need to redefine all our terms.
Texas leads the country in combined wind and solar according to a report issued by the United States Energy Information Administration, and according to the graph they had a price decrease.
https://www.kxan.com/weather-traffic-qas/texas-leads-the-country-in-combined-wind-solar-renewable-energy/