Payday lending does need to be reformed

Sins of commission, sins of omission. Lawmakers are considering Senate Bill 3008 that would cap interest rates on payday loans, and I submit that Richard Dan, operations manager for Maui Loan, Inc., has illustrated one of each (“Bill focuses on regulating short-term payday lending,” Star-Advertiser, Feb. 24).

The sin of commission: He stated that “so far no one has shown that there is a problem with the small loan business in Hawaii that needs fixing.” If true, then why the need for SB 3008 to even be considered? I doubt the Senate is bored enough to make up a totally spurious and unnecessary bill to fill up its time.

The sin of omission? Dan failed to mention the damaging and long-lasting effect on the consumer when he or she “walk(s) away” from the loan. Whatever credit rating the individual may have had before, it would be totally ruined, for years to come. Imagine if the person, in a few months or a year, was hired to a good-paying job. With totally ruined credit, what chances would he/she have?

Think about it. And hopefully the Senate will, or has, thought about it as well.

Michael Mills

Ewa Beach

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No need to mandate fire sprinklers

Bill 69 and related bills regarding the mandatory sprinklers in older condos are being pushed through, especially by Mayor Kirk Caldwell, who is paid to be on the board of a bank that theoretically would gain financially by loans that would be necessary.

I am one of those affected owners, but I feel very safe in my home, which has a lot of safeguards already in place for fire prevention.

Don’t we have more important issues to deal with — for example, abandoned cars, homeless, the over-budget rail?

Laura Glenn

McCully-Moiliili

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Hawaii benefits from Electoral College

A recent letter suggesting President Donald Trump was not “voted in by the people” presents a good case for why simple popular voting would clearly be a disaster for our nation and Hawaii. To say Trump lost the “popular vote” by 3 million votes obscures the fact that Trump lost the popular vote in California alone by 3.9 million votes.

Whether you like California or not, I believe it is a dangerous and unwise suggestion to abandon the Electoral College structure that ensures all 50 states determine the outcome — including the four electors from Hawaii. Don’t be fooled. A popular vote structure would merely substitute what some are calling a “tyranny of the minority” for something potentially far worse — a “tyranny of the majority.”

John Foster

Kapolei

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Public pays while private sector profits

Public-private partnerships are politically popular in promoting propositions as a panacea to pay for producing projects.

Whether public-private or private-public, the plan can work only when the public pays, and the private profits. For the private to profit, the public must pay.

It’s just a matter of how much it’s worth to the public to surrender control of the outcome, and how much it’s worth to the private to assume that control.

Joseph E. Kelleher

Waikiki