I spent the day with Butch Webb, Western Sky’s owner, and some employees last December. Webb told me Western Sky was the largest private employer on the reservation. In a place where about 50 percent of adult workers are either unemployed or out of the workforce, that means a lot. Webb offered the promise of hundreds of jobs to tribal members in exchange for peddling online predatory loans to people off the reservation. Western Sky said it never lent money to people at Cheyenne River or in South Dakota. One employee told me it would create too big a backlash if they had to collect these loans from members of the tribe. Webb told me he had “enough problems to deal with.” Many people on the reservation are very uncomfortable with how this business reflects on them. But when the Tribal Council scrutinized the company, Webb would remind the council how costly it would be to shut him down.Get the Story:
Arvind Ganesan: Predatory lending and Indian country (The Hill 9/24)
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