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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 13, 2024)
Page 2 The Skanner Portland & Seattle November 13, 2024 Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now Bernie Foster Founder/Publisher Opinion Donald Trump Rides Patriarchy Back to the White House Bobbie Dore Foster Executive Editor A Jerry Foster Advertising Manager Patricia Irvin Product Manager Graphic Designer Saundra Sorenson Reporter Mary Reischmann Digital Content Monica J. Foster Seattle Office Coordinator Susan Fried Photographer The Skanner Newspaper, es- tablished in October 1975, is a weekly publication, published every Wednesday by IMM Publi- cations Inc. P.O. Box 5455 Portland, OR 97228 Telephone (503) 285-5555 Fax: (503) 285-2900 info@theskanner.com www.TheSkanner.com The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Association and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. ©2024 The Skanner. All rights re served. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission prohibited. cross the country, mil- lions and millions of citizens who supported Kamala Harris’s presi- dential campaign are no lon- ger walking around in a haze, instead moving toward the light. Still, there is emotional fall- out that needs our attention. Our nerves are frayed; it’s im- possible to ignore the stress. It’s a good time to sit quietly, take deep breaths, and feel our bodies. After nearly a decade of growling and bombast, Don- ald Trump rode a patriar- cha-saurus back into the White House. Why that dino- saur wasn’t winded, exhaust- ed, and ultimately defeated will be studied by historians for a long time. Even as we nurse our psychic wounds, the responsibility of redou- bling our efforts to hasten the end of patriarchy is still on us. Dinosaurs just aren’t that smart. Voters who thought that January 20 would see the na- tion’s first female president begin work on her “to-do” list, remember well her warning that Trump would be work- ing on an enemy’s list. Per- haps she would have added to her list holding a series of na- tional town halls about patri- archy and manhood, perhaps Rob Okun Voice Male magazine coordinated by the White House Gender Policy Council. Instead, that o ce will sure- ly be disbanded immediately after Trump’s inauguration. Nevertheless, it would be- hoove all of us, regardless of our political views, to listen to the frustrations and fears “ objective—to further expand male entitlement, privilege, and power—is getting fresh wind in it sails; most likely, powered by oil. Going forward, what was ac- curate before election day is still true: the type of manhood we choose will contribute to determining what kind of a nation we will be: It now looks more like Proud Boys’ coun- try than a land populated by compassionate men; a Hand- maid’s Tale world of subjuga- tion rather than a nation of empowered women and girls. Half the country thought we It now looks more like Proud Boys’ country than a land populated by compassionate men of disenchanted, underem- ployed and unemployed men, knowing they’ll discover soon enough that they voted against their own self-inter- est. White male supremacy, which Trump ran on, contin- ues to play an outsized role in exacerbating the divide that a icts our nation. While not widely understood, men, too, are damaged by patriarchy; it diminishes us, undermines our humanity. Trump’s election means that patriarchy’s poisonous would be welcoming a First Gentleman, Doug Emhoff, and Vice President-elect Gov. Tim Walz, representing a 21st cen- tury expression of manhood, emphasizing compassion, empathy and care. Instead, we got a heaping helping of Trump’s Archie Bunker’s 20th-century masculinity— gripes and grievance. Too often, men particularly don’t acknowledge how much courage it takes to embody compassion and empathy, and conversely how cowardly it is to rely on meanness and bul- lying. Yet, those repugnant qualities are holding sway now. It’s on us to find new ways to connect with and mentor young men, bringing into fo- cus a new boyhood, a trans- formed manhood. Despite facing strong head- winds, we must continue to urge parents, educators, coaches and other mentors to develop and promote pro- grams that nurture young men’s emotional growth and well-being. We can’t afford to rest right now. Kamala Harris’s candidacy was supposed to be an anti- dote to Donald Trump’s white male supremacy. She didn’t need to talk about feminism; she embodied it. Perhaps that was the problem. Under- playing her gender, race, and ethnicity didn’t protect her from a continuous onslaught of ugly sexist and racist slurs that contributed to her defeat. While feminism simply denotes believing in the po- litical, economic, and social equality of the sexes, Trump and his allies viciously de- meaned it at every turn. They still do. This is not the mo- ment to invite men to learn what feminism really means; that’s for later. Read the rest of this commentary at TheSkanner.com A Loan Shark in Your Pocket: Cash Advance Apps Local News Paci c NW News World News Opinions Jobs, Bids Entertainment Community Calendar LOCAL NEWS BRIEFS LOCAL EVENTS Updated daily online. d ay ! • L i ke u s o n F ebo m me • nts TheSkannerNews o k • learn • co in y o u r c o m m u n to y • ac it Hear about it first. Sign up for Breaking News and Events at Many Americans contin- ue to find it challenging to keep up with the rising cost of living. Despite economic reports attesting to a growing broad economy, the majori- ty of Americans’ household finances feel insecure – es- pecially people who live pay- check to paycheck with little or no savings. The financial marketplace has responded to this ongoing consumer cash crunch with an emerging predatory lend- ing product designed to take full advantage of consumers’ financial mismatch: earned wage advances (EWA). These cash advance products are small, short-term loans, typ- ically ranging from $40 to $200, that are repaid on the consumer’s next payday ei- ther directly from a bank account or as a payroll de- duction. They’re also conve- niently available with a few clicks on borrowers’ smart- phones. But as with other predato- ry loans, wage advances also create a deceptive and highly profitable cycle of debt built upon repeated reborrowing with interest equivalent to 300 percent annual percent- age rates or more. In most cas- es, these cash advances also lead to frequent overdraft fees. The combined repeat borrowing and high costs re- sult in unsuspecting consum- Charlene Crowell Guest Columnist ers learning the so-called con- venience brought more – not less – financial hardship. This summer, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau shared its early analysis of this growing market segment, including key data points: • The number of transactions processed by these provid- ers grew by over 90% from 2021 to 2022, with more than 7 million workers ac- cessing approximately $22 billion in 2022; • The average transaction amount ranged from $35 to $200, with an overall aver- age transaction size of $106, and the average worker ac- cessed $3,000 in funds per year.; and • The average worker in their study had 27 earned wage transactions per year, and a strong growth in fre- quent usage of at least once a month rising from 41% in 2021 to nearly 50% in 2022. More recently, the Cen- ter for Responsible Lending (CRL), released a new policy brief entitled, Paying to be Paid: Consumer Protections Needed for Earned Wage Advances and Other Fintech Cash Advances. “By offering predatory credit with just a few taps on your cell phone, cash advance apps are a loan shark in your pocket. This report shows many cash advance app bor- rowers are trapped in a cycle of debt like that experienced by payday loan borrowers,” said Candice Wang, senior researcher at CRL. “Cash ad- vance app companies issue loans with triple-digit annual interest rates in nearly every corner of America – even where those rates are illegal- ly high – inicting financial pain on a growing number of consumers.” CRL’s analysis of EWA harms wrought in 18 states from January 2021 through June 2024, led to three key findings on its impacts on low- to- moderate-income consumers: • Many cash advance app bor- rowers are trapped in a debt cycle and the heaviest users drive the business model. Repeat use of advances is common and high-frequen- cy users accounted for 38% of users and 86% of advanc- es. Many users borrowed from multiple apps simul- taneously. Nearly half of all borrowers had used multi- ple companies in the same month. • App use is associated with increased overdraft fees and payday loan use. • Consumers across states are experiencing similar harms. The eighteen states analyzed had similar pat- terns of repeat borrowing and overdraft use. States studied included: Arkansas, Arizona, Califor- nia, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Massachu- setts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington. An earlier and related CRL report released this April, cited the federal Government Accountability O ce (GAO) finding that the share of users earning less than $50,000 a year ranged from 59% to 97% across four different advance companies that separately provided these percentag- es. A survey of low-income workers receiving govern- ment benefits found that 51% had used or downloaded di- rect-to-consumer apps and 16% had used them once a week. Most importantly, this re- port included comments by consumers who used cash apps to make ends meet. Read the rest of this commentary at TheSkanner.com nt • lo c a l n e w s • eve
