Enjoy your 4th of July weekend, and be very glad you aren't a port truck driver getting ready to purchase a truck through the financing scheme cooked up by the Port of Long Beach.

On June 30 , the Finance and Support Services Committee of the Port of Long Beach heard from Daimler Truck Financial, the entity recently selected to distribute funds to independent truck drivers who would subsidize the Port's short-term approach to truck replacement. During the presentation, a Damiler representative indicated they believe that over 40% of POLB drivers will have "high difficulty meeting the payments" under the Long Beach Clean Trucks Program.

Hmmm... So out of every five port drivers who sign on to buy new trucks, two will have a hard time making payments? Just to put this in context, in the third quarter of 2007 the overall mortgage delinquency rate for the country was 4.7 percent. Translation: only a tiny fraction of borrowers have to default on loans to create a near-catastrophic upheaval that drains the market of liquidity and makes life very unpleasant for a lot of people.

Some more food for thought. More people are starting to recognize that writing loans for unfit borrowers is a breach of basic human rights. As the Press-Telegram reported yesterday, a group of Long Beach activists staged a protest in front of a major financial institution, claiming that people of color had been singled out for unsafe loans that were likely to default. It's hard not sympathize with these advocates for decency and common sense, but I'll try not to get too steamed. There'll be plenty to say about predatory financing soon enough.

Rest up over the long weekend. We'll have plenty to talk about next week when Long Beach City Council moves to take a closer look at its diluted Clean Trucks Program.