Cover, Jan. 13: “The Weight”
No New Regulations
Your piece on non-bank lending painted a relentlessly negative picture of an essential industry that is starkly at odds with reality.
Most people believe New Mexico has got it about right in cracking down on unscrupulous lenders. Payday loans were eliminated in 2017. What is left are installment loans, considered, including by consumer groups, to be a safer and more affordable form of credit.
The new regulations discussed in your article will eliminate these beneficial loans. Experience has shown that any optimism that credit unions will pick up the slack is woefully misplaced. In fact, borrowers will have nowhere to turn.
The alternative to new laws is to allow the potential of the 2017 and 2019 laws to be realized. These mandate the collection of lending data that can be used to identify the need for new policy and, subsequently, to shape it. The data gives policymakers a powerful tool to avoid unintended consequences and make evidence-based public policy.
I believe the evidence will show that regulation of non-bank lending in the state is working. People depend on credit access, particularly in times of crisis. It's essential that it is not needlessly denied them.
John Nye
Principal/Owner, Kel-Mack Financial Group, dba Money Now Loans
Morning Word, Jan. 20: “Inauguration Day”
Let’s Get it Right
Lincoln said, "Reconstruction is more difficult than construction or destruction." Isn't Biden's "Build Back Better" just another way of saying "reconstruction?" Unfortunately, we did not get the first reconstruction right, but we have another chance and we had better do it right this time or our Republic will lose its democracy.
White supremacy is the sickness that plagues us, worse even than a pandemic virus, because it goes on and on while the virus will fade in the next year or so…Social media and television have unmasked the horrors done to Black and Brown people in the 21st Century. And the Trump efforts to overturn the election of Biden and Harris has revealed the direct targeting of the black vote…Reconstruction is hard, but that doesn't mean we don't do it. We need to have universal health care, good education, housing, and good paying jobs for everyone, a habitable planet, accessible and easy voting, and reform of our justice system including policing, prisons and jails, and the Supreme Court. The Wellesley Centers for Women have a motto: A world that is good for women is good for everyone. As a white feminist and long-time activist, I suggest that "A world that is good for Black and Brown people is good for everyone." Let's get it right this time.
Pat Murphy
Eldorado
