THE MAX ALLEN REPORT
Volume #04131010 April 13, 2023
ONLINE USURY SPARKS SUICIDES
More and more Chinese see suicide as 'the only way out'
On April 4, 2023, four
young people at Tianmen Mountain in Zhangjiajie Province shocked the country,
committing a mass suicide by taking poison and jumping off a cliff. They felt suicide was their 'only way out' because they had accumulated
unmanageable debt through online loans.
This incident has sparked fury and concern among the Chinese people.
In recent years, China's
deteriorating economic and social environments have caused many people to take
on the burden of high interest online loans.
It is usury, but usury is still legal in China with no legal limit on
interest rates. A recent study by the
Centre for Economic Fairness [CEF] showed that online lenders are charging
interest rates as high as 78%. With this
outrageously high interest and equally outrageous violent collection methods,
some people feel that suicide is 'the only way out.'
These hard working and kind-hearted
people find themselves cornered. And their
oppressive environment contributes to their helplessness. Under the enslavement of loan sharks and
having limited capital with which to pay them, their efforts and wages fall
victim to exhorbitant interest rates and violent collection methods. In the end, they get deeper and deeper in an
unrelenting morass of growing interest which often exceeds the original amount
borrowed. It quickly becomes impossible to
extricate themselves from this mess.
This most recent and
shocking mass suicide in Tianmen Mountain in Zhangjiajie Province shows us the
ugliness behind our society. A large and
growing number of the social underclass, those in the middle and lower income
groups, have become vulnerable to the loan sharks of the Chinese Internet. In only a few weeks, one can become literally
enslaved with no way out.
Keep in mind that, if
interest isn't paid in a timely fashion, collection methods are brutal and can
even be fatal. Online lenders employ
rather large and convincing people to collect debt interest. Also, under Chinese law, even if someone dies
still owing a debt, his surviving family is obligated to fulfill any and all
contracts of the deceased.
However, this
law only applies to loans and debt occurring through normal channels such as
bank loans, company loans, and personal loans.
This law does not protect online lenders with the same recovery sources
but the victims of online lenders aren't lawyers and don't know this.
This only exacerbates the
horror of Chinese online lenders and their dirty industry. With virtually no regulation of the online loan
industry in China, millions have become subjugated to the force and threat of
violence presented by online lenders.
Shouldn't government take
this seriously? The recent Zhangjiajie
suicides are by no means just a symptom of the violence of online loan
collection, but rather an unavoidable sign of worse things to come. It has exposed the most prominent and
dangerous contradictions of our Chinese society.
As long as these loan sharks prey on the citizens, there can be no hope or
freedom for the Chinese people. Only
through regulation and prosecution of these very bad actors can China see a
future for its society.
I'm
Max, and that's the way I see it!
