"Payday loan" places are everywhere in LA. I wondered why I never saw them before. Now I know: they're de facto illegal in Massachusetts. Good.

What are payday loans? As Slate explains:
"Many Americans—particularly those who don't live paycheck to paycheck—are unfamiliar with the payday-loan industry, one of the nation's fastest-growing and most depressing businesses. Payday advance companies offer tiny, short-term loans — a few hundred bucks for a few weeks — while charging annual interest rates that top 500 percent."

As a way of taking advantage of the working poor, it's up there with check-cashing places and the ridiculous percentages they extract from each check. Slate joins me in partially blaming big banks and their stupid fees for all this. If you're not financially savvy, these legal scams would be easy to fall for. And, as Angela Nissel explains in the Broke Diaries, you're stuck with check-bouncing places if you bounce enough checks at real banks and wind up on their mysterious blacklist of people who can't be trusted with a bank account.

At least I've never been that poor!