In bankruptcy filings and consumer complaints, thousands of people across the country make pleas for relief from high-interest loans with punishing annual rates that often exceed 600%.
Although they borrowed small sums online from a slew of businesses with catchy names — such as Loan at Last or Sky Trail Cash — their loans stemmed from the same massive operation owned by a small Native American tribe in a remote part of Wisconsin.
Over the past decade, the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians has grown to become a prominent player in the tribal lending industry, generating far-reaching impact and leaving a legacy of economic despair. A ProPublica analysis found companies owned by the LDF tribe showed up as a creditor in roughly 1 out of every 100 bankruptcy cases sampled nationwide.
That’s the highest frequency associated with any of the tribes doing business in this sector of the payday loan industry. And it translates to an estimated 4,800 bankruptcy cases, on average, per year.
I’m fairly certain that they lend to everyone, not just other tribes. The article makes it sound like the tribes out in the boonies need to do something to survive, and the US federal aid mandated in our treaties is hideously insufficient for their needs. Like, I think that what they’re doing is bad because you shouldn’t harm people, and you especially shouldn’t harm people who are struggling. However, I can at least understand why they’re doing it. I can also see that the society they’re targeting shares responsibility for the situation. If the US had been continuously honoring the letter and spirit of the treaties we signed with the tribes, then the tribes would’ve have to resort to exploitative shit like casinos and predatory lending to make money. People will do whatever it takes to improve their situation, and it’s a shame that the US has failed in this regard.
As an aside and for the sake of clarity, I think casinos are predatory and exploit people who don’t understand their odds, but I’m not against their existence in general, or their existence on reservations. Native American folks can do what they want, it’s their goddamned land, and the consenting adults who go to casinos have a responsibility to themselves. I only bring up casinos because of my perception of them and their presence on reservations.
(Also, fuck non-tribe people that use reservations as a way to skirt US regulations. I had no idea that non-tribe people used tribes as fronts for shitty lending operations. Again, kinda smells like something that could have been prevented with proper federal aid.)