Sioux Falls' economy tanks as credit defaults soar. The town that usury built

[Liberal_in_LA]

Sioux Falls' jobs drop as defaults soar

After Sioux Falls got rid of its credit card interest rate limits, financial giants moved in and brought thousands of jobs to the city. But with defaults soaring, the job market has tanked. Stacey Vanek-Smith reports.

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/03/26/pm_sioux_falls_ii

Kai Ryssdal: We've all got our hands full dealing with a recession and financial crisis brought on by millions of mortgages going bad. But out there in the future somewhere might be another credit-induced problem, thanks to those little pieces of plastic we all carry around in our wallets.

Yesterday, we took you to Sioux Falls, S.D., and explained how a change in lending laws there brought banks and their credit-card businesses running. Millions of bills and applications going out and billions in payments coming in to processing centers that needed thousands of workers. Now though it's payback time for Americans who binged on plastic. And for the industry that fed their addiction. In part two of her series on the town that credit built, Marketplace's Stacey Vanek-Smith has a look at how the credit crisis is hitting Sioux Falls.

[depakid]

1. Crocodile tears

Basically, they got caught in a boom bust cycle like western towns of the past that had unsustainable economic models.

[SharonAnn]

2. South Dakota, the Usury State. I can't feel too sad for them.

They encouraged a business model of predatory loaning and ruined the lives of many people.

Yes, perhaps they were people who shouldn't have been borrowing so much, but the banks took advantage of them and South Dakota helped the banks do it.

Jesus threw the money-lenders out of the temple. South Dakota invited them in.

[msongs]

3. is Sioux Falls really in India where all the jobs went? nt

[imdjh]

4. Oooh ! Oooh! Can Delaware be next?

I don't like to see people lose their jobs, but Delaware is a particularly irksome state in the way it has whored itself to banks.