Clarity Services: Response to New York Times Payday Loan Article
Letters to the Editor The New York Times 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018 Re: A response to your editorial on payday lending. My name is Tim Ranney and I am the president of Clarity Services, a leading credit bureau in the non-prime credit services industry. I wanted to offer a few thoughts on your March 4 editorial on payday lending and the information you used from the Pew Research Center study that you referenced. First off, let me say that I am not an opponent or proponent of payday lending or any other financial services industry segment. We are a credit bureau. Our job is to collect...
Read MoreSequester cuts and self-determination
In Washington, debate is de rigeur, but the so-called budget sequester has garnered a rare D.C. consensus: near-universal disdain. The program, originally a failsafe against congressional inaction, was never intended to take effect. Now, though, it’s the law of the land and exacting its brutal cuts everywhere we look and in every corner of the country. Nothing, it seems, is safe. While people across the United States are feeling the impact, these cuts have not been particularly kind to those of us in the Indian community. Recent reports have detailed how they affect us disproportionally and...
Read MoreSen. Merkley: Stop Demonizing Legal Native American Businesses
Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley made his bones by removing Oregon payday lenders from the state by limiting their potential revenue to the point where they couldn’t do business. The result was a loss of several hundred jobs, millions in labor income, and many more millions in GSP. And it didn’t change a single thing about payday loan usage in Oregon. Just like Prohibition, demand for the product didn’t just vanish, but supply did. And just like Prohibition, people were forced to go to other sources for the product they wanted, and pay more for it. You cannot limit demand by limiting supply,...
Read MoreAnalog tribes in a digital economy
If 90% of public schools in the United States lacked Internet access, there would be a national call to action. If 90% of any ethnic group in the country was not connected to the Internet, the backlash would be immense. In 2011, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a report that estimated that 90% of Indian country lacks access to the Internet, and usage rates are as low as 5% in some areas. Would you like to know what happened? The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) did a brief news story. We commend PBS for covering this issue; but the failure to act by policymakers,...
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NCAIED Welcomes NAFSA and AT&T as Sponsors of RES OKLAHOMA
Mesa, Ariz. October 11, 2012 – The National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development (NCAIED) is pleased to announce that the Native American Financial Services Association (NAFSA) and AT&T are the newest sponsors of RES OKLAHOMA, the NCAIED’s new two-day multifaceted Reservation Economic Summit (RES) event to be held from November 14th-15th at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Tulsa, OK. “We are greatly appreciative of the sponsorship contributions that both NAFSA and AT&T have made to our upcoming Reservation Economic Summit in Oklahoma (RES OKLAHOMA),” said...
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