Who can defend payday lenders?

Some jackwad with the not so subtle username of paydaylendingrep defended payday lenders in the comment thread of the editorial I mentioned yesterday. Here’s what he said:

To be clear, not all customers who use payday loans are in poverty. Research shows payday advance customers to be low to middle income, educated, working families, with most earning between $25,000 and $50,000 annually. The fact is that payday lenders provide short-term credit to a broad cross section of Americans because there is widespread demand for their financial services.

My response: Yes and a lot of people smoke crack so that must make it okay to be a crack dealer. Regardless of income, folks using payday lenders are in a financial crap storm that is only going to get crappier with further chance of lighting bolts of crap by using a payday lender. They might not officially be living in poverty, but they are on their way.