Reeling Them In . . .

Down in deepest Mississauga today, at a strip mall just off the main drag. Surrounded by high-rise apartment buildings, the shopping experience is decidedly non-affluent. Pride of place goes to two massive 'charity' stores selling used clothing. Then there's a daunting expanse of breeze-blocked frontage behind which is a ladies' gym, with a side door offering botox injections, plastic surgery, hair removal, skin resurfacing and a plan to 'melt' away 4-30 inches of fat! The row is finished off with a cut-price supermarket, drug store, Popeye's nutrition shop and a Chinese restaurant.

The brightest shop in the neighbourhood is this payday loan operation. Part of a large chain, it offers a $100 loan over 14-days for a fee of a dollar. Reading the small print shows that after this first loan, the cost of a $100 loan is $21 - TWENTY-ONE DOLLARS!!!!! - for 14 days!!! I'm not an accountant, but I have a feeling that the annual interest rate on a recurring $100 loan is a bit more than the exhorbitant 19 per cent my bank charges on its credit cards.

Needless to say, there is no sign of a regular bank to help out with lower rates, although there are a couple more loan shops within a few hundred meters, one of which doubles as a pawn shop. A sign in its window indicates its owners' willingness to relieve passers-by of the burden of any excess gold that might be weighing down their pants. Don't see any queues, though.

The recession, we're told, is over. For some, perhaps . . .