What’s a mere 9 percent of your salary?
Remember when Wilbur Ross said government agencies were offering unpaid workers very low interest loans? Yesterday? (Never mind the fact that people shouldn’t have to pay interest, however low, on their own god damn salaries.) Turns out they’re not what a normal person would call “low” at all, at least not Wilbur Ross’s department.
The Commerce Department’s federal credit union is charging furloughed employees almost 9 percent interest on emergency loans to cover their missing paychecks, despite Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross saying Thursday that financial institutions were offering “very, very low-interest-rate loans to bridge people over the gap.”
Who wouldn’t want to pay 9 percent interest to get their own salary? Such a deal. I hear the commissary was selling milk for only fifty dollars a quart, too.
“During the Government Shutdown we’re here to help our members and non-member employees of the Department of Commerce & NOAA and its affiliates, the Executive Office of the President and the White House Management and Administration Offices,” the credit union’s website says.
Emergency loans of up to $5,000 are available for furloughed employees with repayment terms of up to two years, the site says. Two loan officers reached at the credit union’s telephone number confirmed the terms, which include interest rates “as low as 8.99 percent.”
Golly gee, that low. They’re right up there with Scrooge for generosity.
Interest rates ‘as low as 8.99 percent’ does not necessarily mean that every borrower will be charged 8.99 percent, of course. Rates will likely vary on a rising scale according to the credit ratings of the applicants. It’s a safe bet that the average interest payable will be around 10%, rising to 15% for those who have low credit ratings. As is the nature of lending, those with poor credit scores or even no credit history at all will in all likelihood be refused altogether.
As I mentioned in another thread, to its credit the Navy Federal Credit Union was offering 0% loans to federal workers, but only if they already had an account with direct deposit. That’s probably a reasonable restriction, but the vast majority of people affected by the shutdown didn’t qualify for that.
Note the credit union is not a govt agency and despite its name is not part of the dept of commerce.
i wish that dam asteroid would hurry up
Q: With Trump, how can we lose?
A: Lots of ways.