“Powerful people sometimes do things to help people like me without really understanding people like me.”

In yet another review of Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, the London Spectator’s  Helen Dale notes that:

Vance makes few policy suggestions, most of them mild. However, his account of a debate in the Ohio Senate on a Bill to curb payday lenders is salutary.

He points out – with his poor credit history – that he has had recourse to payday lenders. On one occasion, he avoided a large overdraft fee. Without a payday lender, he’d have been forced to go to a loan shark – which, given the drug culture among poor whites, could have been injurious to his health.

‘The legislators debating the merits of payday lending didn’t mention situations like that,’ he notes. ‘The lesson? Powerful people sometimes do things to help people like me without really understanding people like me’.

H/T to Walter Olson at overlawyered.com.