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Payday Lenders Target Poor New Mexicans

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NPR's got a nice little story on payday loans in New Mexico.

New Mexico is one of the poorest states in the nation, and has virtually no laws regulating payday lenders, making it a perfect breeding ground for these usurious knaves.

The state is currently considering legislation that could potentially put the payday loan industry out of business in New Mexico... boo-hoo. — BEN POPKEN

'Payday Loans' Plague New Mexico's Working Poor [NPR]

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I actually live in New Mexico. I've never really thought about it, but, yeah, there's hundreds of unique payday loan centers in New Mexico, and I guess that's not normal in most other states. There's a huge amount of the population that just either doesn't understand what they're really paying, or do, but they don't understand that there's alternatives.

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free enterprise is fine, but these roaches should be stamped out.

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Did anyone else read the headline as "Payday Lenders Target Poor New Mexican (Immigrants)" rather than "Payday Lenders Target Poor New Mexicans (inhabitants of the state of New Mexico)" ?


Haha whoops.

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i live in new mexico as well, and here in clovis there are at least three payday loan offices, plus another three title loans offices---and all but one are located in the less affluent areas of town.

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Yeah, you don't see a lot of payday loan places and pawn shops opening up in the affluent neighborhoods.

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I need some new Mexicans. I'm tired of these old ones.

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God, why can't the government jut get out of our lives and free the invisible guiding hand of the market. Damn you, big government. Damn. You.

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God, why can't the government jut get out of our lives and free the invisible guiding hand of the market. Damn you, big government. Damn. You.

I don't get it. Sarcasm?

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God, why can't the government jut get out of our lives and free the invisible guiding hand of the market. Damn you, big government. Damn. You.

Milton Friedman assumed that everyone understood the costs / consequences of their actions. At the very least, he expected that all participants in the microeconomy spoke the same language. He never said that we should have a free market in Hell, and let everyone decide at which prices they would sell their souls to the devil.

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My favorite bit of the story is when the woman from the payday loan center says that they're a better deal than overdraft fees. What? 500% interest is better than a $30 or $40 overdraft charge? These payday lenders are the lowest of the low.

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I'd be curious to learn what kind of interest rates are charged by that micro-lending guy who won the Nobel Prize last year. Does "usury" exist in a vacuum, or must it be viewed in context?

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All of them have hidden charges which builds up everyday and at the time of repayment the customer has to just bear everything. The lenders enjoy as they become richer and richer...