Rabbi Warns This Is Destroying America's Small Businesses

Now this is gazil. It's not just it's not considered lending. It's considered stealing. Even a terisa would not work on such a business. >> One in 20 households have taken one out at some point. It's a $9 billion industry. >> There are more payday loan stores in America than Starbucks and McDonald's. Your couch are locked up. They've been seized without any notice to you. >> Every day we were getting our bank account hit every single day. Well, it got to the point where it was nothing there and it was going negative. I mean, if you charge somebody, you know, 40% interest rate, I mean, that's that's greed, right? >> These guys call businesses across the country and they're offering quick money. They say that they can get you 50 100 grand overnight, >> charging sky interest rates up to 400%. >> Some of those rates legally are as high as 1,900% a year. you know, freezing bank accounts, filing leans on your homes. >> A confession of judgment is something that the borrower signs as a condition of getting the loan. It basically means they give up their right to be heard in court. >> Are the people that work for financial institutions, part of their cash advance sin, even though they're not the owner of the business? Anyone that works in a predatory business, a corrupt business is part of the uh the problem is part of the sinner. So that means whether you are a broker or an owner or a secretary or a bookkeeper and you or whatever other position that helps the cash advance business, which is a predatory business, which is a corrupt business, which is an evil business. uh whatever position you're in, you are helping that business function. You're helping that business grow. You're helping that business destroy lives. So certainly you are part of the problem. Certainly you are sinning. Certainly you're going to get punished. Now of course some people will get punished much more than others. But be assured, be assured that the punishment will eventually come. And again to emphasize this enough to people that don't understand the cash advance business is not the only evil corrupt business that's out there in the world. There are others. There's obviously the the horrific things that's happening right now in the last few years with online gambling where it's become legal in the United States and literally anyone with a phone uh could have a whole entire casino on his phone. Now it's legal now. They they're discussing gambling on sports. They're discussing gambling on national TV. things that were forbidden for all of history. now a standard in that part. There is obviously corruption in in the whole cryptocurrency industries of how literally people are, you know, robbing the public in plain in plain daylight without being afraid and even making video of themselves laughing at the people they robbed and crime has become legal. Uh, you know, so it's it's horrific. So that's obviously corruption there. There's corruption in all types of industries. But the cash advance business is from my perspective, from my understanding is I don't believe that there is something that is more evil than it. It's also corrupt like everything else that I said, but it has a different a different level of of of evil in it. And I'll tell you why. If somebody steals somebody's money, whether it's through cheating them in the gambling or it's in the uh um you know cryptocurrency scams that are happening literally every single day or other investment scams or uh you know business scams, whatever it is, what they're taking is something that somebody saved up over a period of time. You know, they they worked for it. They, let's say, they steal their 50,000, $100,000, million dollars, whatever it is. But that's it. That's where it ends. The cash advance industry is so evil, is so corrupt that they're not stealing the person's money. They're stealing their life. Why? Because who are the customers of the cash advance industry? Business owners. Small business owners. By small business, people think, "Oh, small business, he probably makes uh, you know, $5,000 a month." No, small business could be anywhere from a couple thousand to $10 million, $20 million. Small, still considered small business. So, they're lending money to small businesses, which by the way, anyone that doesn't know anything about about how finances work and everything in in in uh in the world, small businesses are what pushes the economy forward or backwards. It's not the business that you hear about in the news, in the stock market all the time, the Microsofts and the Googles of the world. Yes, those businesses are important. Those businesses are great, but they do not push the economy one way or the other because the small businesses are much there's much more of them. The small business are are are very very critical part of the economy. They're very critical part of society. So the cash advance industry goes to the small business owner and gives him a loan that he is simply never going to be able to pay back without literally winning the lottery. uh or or or or or simply putting himself in a uh in impossible situations. Why? Because they're giving him a loan that has what's called a predatory rate. What's a predatory rate? A predatory rate means that the interest that they're charging him 50, 80, 100, 200, 300, 4,000%. It just simply depends how much they hate this guy and how much they're they're they're willing to to to destroy his life. But even if they're only charging him 60 70%. Only which is again that means he borrow $100,000 now he has to pay back 160 but it's not really 160 because it acrru but regardless of that that guy does not realize that the amount of interest that he's going to have to pay on this money is much more significant than the amount of money he's going to be able to make with that money. So what ends up happen with most cases is that by the time he realizes what he got himself into where they're taking money from his bank account without needing any authorization anymore because that's part of the contract. You sign a contract with the cash advance business. They take money from his bank account uh automatically every week and whenever they feel like it. It's not like a credit card or some type of mortgage where you they send you a bill and you make a payment. No, they get authorization over your bank account and they take money out of the bank account every week or whenever they feel like it practically. They can literally empty out the guy's bank account if they really want to. Now, what ends up happening if the guy uh let's say empties out his bank account so he doesn't have to pay them or he doesn't have the money or whatever it is, they have so many uh uh different things that they can do to destroy his life that they'll take away all of his assets, his business, his house, his everything. But even without all of that, even if he does everything he can to to uh to actually pay the loan, to do what he can, he doesn't realize when he signs the contract, he doesn't realize what 80% interest means. By the time he realizes it, that that $100,000 just turned into $180,000. And he realizes he can't pay it back because the interest is growing much faster than any profit he potentially made with that money if he invested it in his business. He simply can't catch up. And the payments continue to get bigger. So now what does he do? What do these evil monsters do? They tell him, "Listen, your your payments are higher now. You have to do uh something. You have to give us more, but you don't have more. You know what? We'll give you another loan to buy out this loan. Now you owe us $180,000. We'll give you a new loan for 300,000." So now you have the $180,000 in essence refinance at another high rate and another $120,000 we're giving you to your business as if we're helping you. But in reality, they're not helping him. They're destroying him. This is like simply somebody telling you, "I'm going to cure your uh your uh your uh uh uh allergies by putting cancer in your body." So what ends up happening within about a year, usually that's around the average, sometimes a little longer, sometimes even less, this person is put in a position where he is now in an impossible situation. Unless he gets somebody that is, you know, rich and loves him and unconditionally and has the money and everything to just buy out the loan. What he ends up doing is that now he's at has 300 $400,000 that he's borrowed. That $300 $400,000 that he's borrowed has turned into a million dollars that he owes. Which means that even if his business succeeds in growing 30% a year, it's still not going to be able to pay back the loan. And he ends up having to declare bankruptcy. He ends up having to default. He ends up completely losing his business. Now, what does that mean? Why is losing a business much worse than losing a bunch of money in the stock market or cryptocurrency or gambling? Why is losing a business? For anyone that build a business in their life, they would understand this very, it's very close to home. Anyone that doesn't should still understand it, but anyone that's an entrepreneur should understand this very well. If you build a business, entrepreneurs look cool on TV after they succeed. But in reality, there's nothing cool about it in the beginning. Why? Because in so many words, you're doing the impossible and you're doing things that other people are not usually willing to do. You're taking risk. You're putting everything on the line. You're working overtime as a standard. You're not there's no such thing as an entrepreneur that works 9 to5. Employees work 9 to5 uh at best. Entrepreneurs don't have a schedule. They work non-stop, especially in the beginning stages. You work at night, you work during the day, you work in the afternoon. There's there's no vacation. There's no Why? cuz you need to have money to pay the employees. Those same people that work less than you. Those same people that don't necessarily care about the business as much as you. But you still have to pay them because they work for you and you have to pay the vendors and you have to pay the IRS and you have to pay the this and you have to pay that. So, the guy that's building a business literally is constantly putting everything on the line every single day just to keep this business alive and to be able to hopefully scratch out enough money to be able to live too, to pay the rent, to pay the mortgage, to pay for for tuition, whatever it is for his kids. So in so many words, an entrepreneur that builds a business, he's putting everything he has, everything she has into that business, all of their time, effort, energy, everything in especially in the beginning. Now, a guy that's built a business over 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. Now, that means that he has been doing this for all those years. of course sometimes were more difficult than others during the crisis during the corona during uh different things that uh they had that particular to their business but nonetheless if he has been in this business for 30 years that means that he has gone through hell and back just to keep that business alive just to keep that business from simply going bankrupt just to keep that business from being you know not being obsolete just to keep it relevant whether it's a cafe shop or or a plumbing company or a law firm or whatever it is, regardless of what business it is. If he has been doing it for 20, 30 years, that means he has been putting everything on the line all of that time to pay the employees, to pay for the vendors, to pay the government, to pay the regulators, to pay the uh everything. And it looks like he lives a good life because now he has a million dollar house or he has a nice car. But you don't an employee will never understand what the owner goes through until he becomes an owner. And now that guy that put everything on the line is in a situation where he needs to borrow money in order to grow his business further in order to pay some bills that he doesn't have the liquidity to pay for. And he thinks that when the cash advance company that doesn't stop marketing through text messaging and online and everything else, they're a marketing machine. When they finally call him and tell him, "Listen, hey Joe, how about I send you $100,000 in the next two days?" Really? You could send me $100,000? Yeah, we can lend it to you. No problem. Just get a sign. We'll lend it to you. Now, Joe knows. He went to the bank to ask for $100,000. The bank said no. Why? because the bank either already lent the money or he doesn't have good credit or that's good enough for them or whatever it is. And Joe says, "Listen, yeah, I'll take this $100,000." Sure. He doesn't even think about the fact that this $100,000 is coming at 80% interest, is coming with terms that he wouldn't even give to his enemies. He's just thinking, "This guy is uh is a godsend. Why? He just called me and he was willing to give me $100,000 in two days. Nonetheless, even the mortgage takes a few months." So now the guy's not thinking clearly. He borrows the money and then the payments start being taken a week later from his bank. He starts realizing, "Wait, wait. You guys just took you guys just took $2,000 out of my account." "Yeah, Joe, you signed on it." "Yeah, but that's I borrowed $100,000. You already took 2,000 a week later." "Yeah, listen. It's 80% interest. You have to pay every month." Now, he starts to realize what he got himself into. And what ends up happening, Abu Tai, is that guy that built the business for 20, 30 years, slaving, sacrificing everything for that business, ends up closing chop, going completely broke, losing 30 years of his life, even if he has a million dollars in the bank or in his stock portfolio or in a real estate portfolio. That would be inconsequential in his eyes next to what he just lost. Why? You just took this cash advance business just took 30 years of his life, 20 year of his of his life. They literally murdered him. That's why anyone that understands even half 10% of what I understand about that business knows that there's nothing more evil than that business. Now, there is a bigger version of this business that's called private credit. that's being done with major corporations, which also is going to lead to a major bubble and crisis and and disaster in the markets. But that's for another time. The cash advance business is an evil evil evil business. And that's just an understatement because unlike the rest of the corruption that has become standard, the gambling, the the perversions, the whatever all the other things that we don't even have to repeat anymore. All of those other criminals, they take a piece of life, a piece of life, a piece of time, a the savings, the the the investment, the speculative part. They take something, but they don't take 30 years of somebody's life. if they don't take their business. And guess what? The cash advance industry, their primary target are business owners, small business owners. They're not calling Microsoft asking them if they need a $100 million loan. They're not calling Intel asking them if they need a loan. They're calling Joe and Steve and Shuel and Ruven and and and everybody that they can that's simply not big enough to be out of their league, but also not somebody that just got out of college with uh you know with a $200,000 uh you know um a uh college loan. They're looking for that business owner, especially the ones that have established at least some type of track record. They built they have a million dollar business, $2 million business, $100,000 business, whatever it is, and they destroy it. And I tell you this, I spoke to a lot of the people in the industry. I even have recordings recordings of training videos of how these evil monsters that's that that are running these organizations, how they train people that they're recruiting to become brokers in the cash advance business. It's it's it's literally like uh gangsters that pretend to be righteous. I don't know how else to explain it, but anyway, there was one guy that uh I spoke to and I he told me, "Listen, within uh six months, he made a million dollars. This 18-year-old little kid, knew nothing in his life, made a million dollars in his cash advance business in six months." I told him, "All those guys that you lent the money to make that million dollars, how many of them are still in business?" He's like, "Rabbi, they all went broke. They all declared bankruptcy." Meaning the loan that he gave them that made him a million dollars destroyed all of their lives. So, let's say, let's just hypothetically speaking, let's say he got, I don't know, a 100 deals, 50 deals. That means he just destroyed 50 companies. 50 companies. That means no less than 50 different lives. And of course, all of them had employees. All of them had people that have careers. The damage that this little kid made, and this is just a little kid that worked in the industry for less for a year. A million dollars he made destroyed all these companies. I told him, "How much of the million dollars do you have still left? At least you have something left. He says, "No, that's gone, too." He says, "One of the things that all the cash advanced people end up doing after they go into the business with all the fast money, everybody becomes a drug addict. Everybody becomes a degenerate in drugs. No matter if they're religious, not religious, they all become degenerate losers, corrupt in every aspect of life. I don't care if you have payot that are three times longer than mine or a hat or a beard or you call yourself a rabbi or you're not religious. If you are in that cash advance business, you are a monster. You're going to go to gum and never come out and anyone that helped you or the rabbi that supported you that told you that it's okay to do it. Or whoever was part of your corruption is going to go in the same chamber in gum that you're going to go into. Why? Because you are not only destroying people's lives, you're desecrating God's name and you are becoming one of the fuels to power Amalik to power Amalikch. That's what Rashi says on the puk when when Hashem warns us not to do uh unjust business. And the next puk after that is a uh is the warning uh the reminder of Amalecch. Rashi says when am does business that corruptly they're giving power to Amalik and that's why the sages said clearly clearly this is actually in the name and the prophets even said it the prophet said it someone that that gains money that makes money makes his living in an unjust way cuts off half of his life. So I promise everybody you're going to see a kadoshbah whose name sanctified even though it's not going to look pretty. You'll see people not only go to jail, you're going to see people dying young. You're going to see a disaster. You're going to see such horrible things. You're going to think the gay no movie that I made is a pretty movie next to what these people are bringing. There's nothing more evil than someone knowingly doing a business transaction that they know is going to destroy somebody's life. It is it's simply evil beyond all comprehension. And I cannot believe I cannot believe that there are people that are supportive of this, calling themselves rabbis without even investigating what they're supportive of. Anyone that looks at what this is knows it's corrupt. I spoke to my dear friend Hamnikov David Hamnik just just the other day. Hey, weem it's he's an extraordinary Torah scholar huge one of the one of the of America in in the previous generation and he uh him and I have spoken several times over the years and and when I told him about this whole cash advance literally he says you have to do something about it somebody came to him just the other day asking him about cash advance he said I started yelling at the guy he tells me and then he called me told me he started yelling at the guy anyone that has invested investigated. That business knows it's corrupt. The people that are in it know it's corrupt. They may not know it's corrupt on day one, but after 3 months, 6 months, you see all your all your clients are declaring bankruptcy, are crying, are committing suicide, are getting divorced, are are literally losing their life. At that point, you know, the business is corrupt. Why don't they leave right away? Because now they're addicted to the money that they're making, the 100, 200, $400,000 a month. this this nobody that barely knows how to read six months ago now is making a h 100,000 a month. How is he going to leave it? Yeah, but you're ruining people's lives. Listen, they chose they'll start justifying. Yeah, they chose to sign. I didn't tell them to sign. So, when I told you guys it's an evil business years ago, I knew what I know. But a lot more has been discovered since then. Some that I'm telling you now, some that I'm not telling you. In so many words, trust me when I tell you the damage that this business is going to bring is the disaster that's unquantifiable. Just put it this way. We'll finish off with this. Destruction of the beta mikdash. the pilgrims in England in the 1100s, the Spanish Inquisition, the different pilgrims and massacres that happened in Morocco, the Holocaust, and countless other major disasters in Jewish history. Major business, major business that prospered right before those disasters happened. was another version of the cash advance business. They called it different things, but it's always that this is not the first time. This is not new. And every major disaster in Jewish history was preceded with the success of this corrupt predatory business. It's sad that people don't learn from history, but hopefully hopefully people understand that the ramifications are significant. If you want to do something about it, you want to help in some way, you can order some of our books that are called in the store, distribute them in your community, to your rabbi, to the people in the community that speak Hebrew, they can read, they can at least read the uh uh discussion the response that nobody could dispute showing that it's against the Tawat to be in this business or any any any business similar to it and uh we could simply pray that we could help more and more people do chuva and save them from uh from this disaster but it's it's happening it's getting bit bigger by the day it's getting worse by the day I know that my words bothered that industry bother people in that industry when they sent me they send me hate and calls and they think that they could threaten me is with us. When he's with us, doesn't make a difference who's next, who who's against us. So, as I've said to them and especially those that are brazen and and arrogant about what they do and the the everything that they're doing, as long as allows me, I will continue exposing more and more about the evil nature of this business and any other evil and corruption out there that that is that we can that we could uh uh help people with, to stay away from, to protect them, to warn them And no matter what threats, no matter what they do, because this is a disaster of fourth stage that is hiding in plain sight and everyone is acting normal as if it's good times. As if it's good times. Mindboggling what's corruption is happening right now. The people that have been watching this and will watch this in the future will take upon themselves to help distribute this lecture, the books, all the different things that will help Ami is see the truth for what it is. And perhaps you'll be fortunate enough like we've been over the years and being able to not only help people do cha but even get people out of that business. I have many, many people, brokers that were in that business that were making a lot of money that realized what they were doing, asked questions, got the answers, and ended up taking uh, you know, taking Hashem first and and leaving the business. But there's still a lot. Obviously, we still still have a lot of work to do. Each one can be each one of you could be a pin in your own way. [Music] Let me know uh what you think and make sure to share it because other people need to learn