Payday lending Services should be banned

COUNTERPLAN: Nowhere in my burden does it say that I cannot propose a counterplan. My burden is to "Prove that pay day lending shouldn't be banned." A good reason not to ban something is if you can regulate it effectively instead of having a complete ban. We regulate many things like automobiles, cigarettes, alcohol, and toxic chemicals that would cause a lot more harm if not regulated. There are a lot of things that if they were as unregulated as payday loans are today, they might be causing enough harm that people would be calling for them to be banned. In order to determine whether something should be banned, we should consider whether an intermediate level of regulation that eliminates the worst aspects of it is better than the extreme option of an outright ban. If the resolution had said "Payday loans are bad" or "Payday loans do more harm than good", then a discussion of hypothetical regulation would have been inappropriate. However, the resolution says it should be banned, and whenever real policymakers decide whether to ban something, they also consider whether a partial restriction would be better. If I can prove that regulation is better than an outright ban I have disproved the resolution and met my burden. Pro says that counterplans are unfair but does not make any warrants to show that counterplans are prohibited on DDO. They are not, unless they are specifically mentioned in the debate criteria, which they are not. Here are some examples of DDO debates with counterplans: http://www.debate.org... http://www.debate.org... http://www.debate.org... And examples of debates that specifically ban counterplans, which this one does not: http://www.debate.org... http://www.debate.org... Pro says "Also I didn"t set this like a Congress debate, policy debate, or LD debate so I don"t know why you"re trying to make up something and run it. " However, this implicitly contradicts Pro's own criteria, which says "I debated this topic maybe 6-7 months ago and it was mostly one sided. The few who were actually against this method had an argument but it was confusing and all over the place. Also none of these people moved on to the next round in my event (congress)." The criteria implies that treating this like a Congress debate would be acceptable. I was not in any way led to expect that counterplans would be unacceptable. Also there is no established precedent in debate that I know of that requires that counterplans have a source for the counterplan text, and Pro has not cited such a precedent. If you do a search for "counterplan" on DDO, you will find many debates where counterplans were made up by Con. And this CP is not completely made up - it is a hybrid of an existing Florida law and a proposal by the CFPB. Since the Florida law is more flexible and more politically conservative while the CFPB law is more liberal. In politics there are often compromises between liberal and conservative positions so the CP is not impossible to happen in real life. Details about the Florida law can be found here: http://www.flofr.com..., and the CFPB proposal is here: http://www.consumerfinance.gov... Pro says it is unfair to run a counterplan - but anyone who competes is Congress, Policy, LD, or Parli debate would disagree. In fact it would be unfair to require that I support indefinitely extending the status quo where there is very little federal regulation of payday loans. Unregulated payday loans are hard to defend. Defending unregulated payday loans is unrealistic because regulation is inevitable. The Pew Research Center says that 75% of Americans think that payday loans should be more regulated, and in a democratic system the will of the people is translated into law. http://www.pewtrusts.org... By refusing to debate against the counterplan, Pro has conceded all of it. Extend all of my claims about how the counterplan would be a better solution than an outright ban. BUSINESS CONFIDENCE: First, extend that the counterplan forces payday lenders to engage in more reasonable practices if they want to stay in business. Pro concedes all of my perceptual links about business confidence. Extend all of my impacts about how economic decline leads to death, crime, and poverty. All of Pro's arguments against this disadvantage are based on payday lenders being unethical, leaving my claims about how businesses are reluctant to grow in an environment of aggressively increasing regulation untouched. This means that for the purposes of this debate we can conclude that there is a 100% probability that banning payday loans would hurt the economy. Pro says that we should evaluate this debate in a utilitarian framework, and I accept. When evaluating different impacts in a utilitarian format we must place human life before everything else, since preservation of life is a necessary condition for existence. Since Pro has provided no evidence that banning payday loans will save lives, you should be voting for Con because Pro's advocacy costs more lives than it saves. DESPERATION: Pro says that my claim is made up, but he provides no evidence of his own to contradict it. All of the alternatives Pro talks about - borrowing from a friend, going to a pawn shop, etc., are not always available. People who are poor tend to be friends with others who are poor, and may not always be able to borrow the money. Pawn shops require that you give an item of real value as collateral - again, not always an option. Also, they charge high interest rates similar to payday loans - an average of 10% per month. http://www.nolo.com... Pro repeats his assertions about peer-to-peer lending sites but concedes my claim that they are not always a solution in an emergency. AUTONOMY: Pro has completely conceded this disadvantage. Extend my argumentation about how a ban on payday loans proposed and passed by people who have no need from them dehumanizes the people who would want payday loans by implying that they are too stupid to make their own decisions. No one is forced to have a payday loan - if these people don't want payday loans they don't have to get one. Yet if they are prohibited from getting payday loans this means privileged people who don't want payday loans are deciding what is best for people who do. INSTALLMENT LOANS: If payday loans are banned there will be higher demand for installment loans. According to the laws of economics, if demand increases, so will price. For an installment loan, the price is the interest rate. Also the unethical payday lenders would go into the installment loan business and act unethically there too, charging customers unfairly high rates which customers would have to accept because they can't get payday loans anymore. Pro concedes that bad credit can be an obstacle to getting installment loans, which is very important because many people who take out payday loans do so because they do not have good enough credit to borrow money in other ways. FAITH-BASED ALTERNATIVES: Pro says that some churches do operate for a profit. However, Pro concedes that the type of lending they do for high-risk individuals is not profitable, and that because it is not profitable they will not provide more of it if payday loans are banned. Pro's argument about illegally using the criminal justice system to pursue people who have payday loans is not relevant to whether they should be banned, because of the criminal justice system in a particular area is so corrupt that they illegally arrest people who don't pay off their payday loans, why would such a corrupt system be effective in enforcing a ban on payday loans? Since Pro's criteria does not require that they provide a method of enforcement, this debate should take place in a hypothetical setting where laws function as they should.