He’s also the new Republican governor of Virginia and is taking aim at the commonwealth’s oppressive and inefficient state-owned liquor monopoly. More than a dozen states still completely control the sales and distribution of all distilled spirits.

The result? Higher payrolls for state governments (state-workers are public-sector employees after all) and rotten selection and service for customers (state-sanctioned monopolies tend to diminish the shopping experience).

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The Virginia State Credit Union is mining for gold and it’s finding it.  Thanks to former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, state employees are being duped into a credit product designed to take more money from their paychecks than the payday loans it was designed to replace.  Not only that, this spider catches its flies via unfair competition.

Welcome to The c, or “Virginia PDL Public Option”.  It’s as bad an idea as has ever come into the credit space, short of the credit default swap.  Naturally, it is the invention of Government.

I’ll jump over all the usual falsehoods that Mr. Kaine presents and cut to the chase.

What’s so bad about this program?  Let’s take the unfair competition part first.   I don’t have any problem with the government entering the consumer credit business, just as I have no problem with a fair public option for health care, as long as the playing field is level. Therein lies the rub.

The PDL Public Option provides loans up to $500, at a 24.99% APR, with a six-month term, and a limit of  2 loans annually.  It requires membership in the Virginia Credit Union (VACU), which administers the program.   The VACU also requires direct deposit of the borrower’s paycheck.

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Here’s a concept I never thought we’d be exporting: governments taking over markets to act as the “competition.” 

News is Venezuelan brute Hugo Chavez has created a “new chain of government-run, cut-rate retail stores that will sell everything from food to cars to clothing from places such as China, Argentina and Bolivia,” according to Breitbart.com:

Chavez said the Comerso chain of stores will include “a network of subsidiaries” that will sell new vehicles directly imported from China and Argentina, “without capitalist intermediaries.”

“We’re going to defeat speculation. Private individuals in sales can still sell, but they’ll have to compete with us and with a people who is now fully aware,” Chavez said.

Gee, where have I heard that before?  Oh yeah!  That kind of sounds like the talking points from the Democrats government-option proposal.

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