Letter America: Dear Southwest Airlines

New Mexico Workforce Solutions Secretary Ken Ortiz today presented the latest on the state's skyrocketing unemployment to the state House Committee on Labor & Human Resources. Among the facts he laid out: Weekly jobless claims increased 500 percent between June 2008 and December 2009. There were approximately 12,000 New Mexicans claiming jobless benefits, according to Ortiz' charts. Now there are approximately 60,000. When question time came around, state Rep. Candy Spence Ezzell laid into Ortiz, first by complaining that she'd been unable to get through to him, or anyone at the department, despite repeated calls over a period of weeks. But Ezzell wasn't about to sympathize with the thousands of New Mexicans who routinely spend hours on the phone checking on the status of their jobless benefits. No, she was upset that the state wasn't drug testing people collecting unemployment. Watch: With her references to "caseworkers"--which are assigned to people on probation, or claiming certain types of welfare benefits, but not to people collecting unemployment insurance--Ezzell, for all her forcefulness, seemed unsure about how the system actually worked. Ezzell was absent for the next section of the committee meeting. SFR asked Ortiz after his presentation if he got the impression that Ezzell knew what unemployment insurance was. "No," Ortiz said. "Did you?"

SFR's year-end issue has a brief overview of how New Mexico and Santa Fe County fared economically in 2009. The short answer is, worse than was reported. Here's a little holiday bonus: Background research. These cold numbers may be small consolation if you're among the unemployed, or the employed-but-broke, but then again, at least you'll know you're not alone. The map below links to the New York Fed's nationwide "credit conditions" data, where you can see how Santa Feans are doing when it comes to repaying their credit cars, student loans and mortgages on time. But wait, there's more. These Excel spreadsheets have loads of state-by-state data on the performance of non-prime mortgage loans. Right-click to download them here (subprime loans) and here (alt-A loans). They show that 8.1 percent of alt-A (read: slightly better than subprime) mortgages, and 10.5 percent of subprime mortgages in New Mexico are in foreclosure. Curiously, they also show that New Mexicans are paying relatively high interest rates on their mortgages. Theories, anyone? Explanations? Gripes?

Today the financial wires are reporting the unexplained resignation of the chief executive of a local bank's parent company. A story on local bank health in current issue of SFR mentions the troubles at Taos-based First Community Bank, which "took a $79 million loss last quarter." FCB President Pat Dee tells SFR his bank is adequately capitalized, blaming its...problems on the economy. “You can say in hindsight we did more residential construction and land development loans than we should have, but three or four years ago, nobody foresaw the problems we're having today,” Dee says. And now from the Taos News: First State Bankcorp CEO Michael Stanford will resign Dec. 31 for unclear reasons, Global Finanacial Newswires reported Tuesday morning (Dec. 22). As the parent company for New Mexico's First Community Bank branches, the ramifications of the resignation have yet to be clarified by Taos First Community Bank or from the branch's officials in Albuquerque — all of whom were unavailable for comment Tuesday morning.

This week's SFR draws attention to an oil-industry tax break extension sponsored by oilman and US Rep. Harry Teague, D-NM, a newbie to Congress whom conventional wisdom describes as "vulnerable." Yesterday, Public Citizen put out a list meant to shame Congressional opponents of key reforms in the financial sector who had taken big money from...the financial sector. Teague was on that list. From Public Citizen: Dec. 8, 2009 – Representatives sponsoring two amendments that would weaken critical consumer protections in financial reform legislation have received at least $2.3 million from the financial services sector since the beginning of 2009, according to Public Citizen's analysis of data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics (www.opensecrets.org). An amendment sponsored by Rep. Melissa Bean (D-Ill.) would block states from enforcing their own consumer protections laws. A second amendment, sponsored by Rep. Walter Minnick (D- Idaho), would set up a feckless alternative in place of the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. h/t Harper's, who calls these lawmakers "The Bankers' Financial Protection Agency." The Bankers' Financial Protection Agency

SFR's ongoing coverage of the "buy local" movement and its paranoid doppelgänger, "buy precious metals," has produced nothing so succinct as this recent segment on The Colbert Report, which you can watch here. Seriously: Watch. It. "Ask yourself: When the s*** goes down, what do you want in the briefcase handcuffed to your arm?"

Forbes has just released its ranking of the best states for businesses and New Mexico came down dead in the middle: 27th, right there between Arkansas and Alabama. Virginia moved to the number one slot, while Rhode Island sunk to the bottom. Here's how New Mexico ranked in the five key categories: Business costs: 26 Labor: 32 Regulatory environment: 31 Economic climate: 11 Growth prospects: 6 Quality of life: 48 So, the good news is that commerce is going to expand, but we're still a shitty place to live.

First, a caveat: This information was already out of date when I picked it up from the Legislative Finance Committee last week. An economist there says continued decline in the broader economy will make for bigger projected deficits as state lawmakers prepare to meet Oct. 17 for a special session on the budget. I'll update this post when I have better numbers. Still, these give a pretty stark picture of what New Mexico faces going forward, per this week's forthcoming story in SFR. As the scrawl suggests, the numbers in parens are the state budget deficits for this and the next fiscal years. They add up to approximately $656 million, or roughly 8.5 percent of what the state takes in in a year. Why is this happening? The R-word, of course. This chart shows what happened to statewide gross receipts tax collections since the summer of 2007, before the recession hit hard around the country. Those GRT figures are a decent measure of how much people and businesses are spending. As you can see, not so much. (This chart also shows that the recession did in fact come to New Mexico somewhat late—around December 2008.) You can download the whole 13-page PDF from which these figures were derived right here. For those without that much time to kill, this last chart is an important one. This says even if lawmakers succeed in balancing this and next year's budget through another round of cuts, they'll still be running a deficit of at least $116 million for fiscal year 2011. The word for that is "punting."

This just in: LT. GOVERNOR DIANE DENISH CHALLENGES SCHOOL DISTRICTS TO SAVE MONEY Santa Fe, NM – Lt. Governor Diane Denish will be meeting with New Mexico school superintendents tomorrow to discuss energy cost saving measures. Our school districts spend more than $60 million on energy costs per year. “I'm challenging each school district to cut its energy use by 10 percent because during these tough economic times we all need to think outside the box to save money and be more energy efficient. Making our schools more energy efficient will save millions of dollars per year and will send our students an important message about protecting our environment and energy resources. This measure alone won't fix our state's budget shortfall but it's an example of one creative measure we can take to be more fiscally responsible. We must find more like it," said Lt. Governor Diane Denish. This must be some kind of first: A gubernatorial candidate trying to spin the fact that the state wants to turn down the thermostats on schoolkids—all because the current governor and party leaders want to keep tax breaks for the rich in effect—as an energy-saving measure. The message comes, of course, on the season's first day of snow in Santa Fe. Here's a creative measure: Put on a sweater, kids. If it was good enough for your great-grandparents, its good enough for you. Come to think of it, why does every student need his or her own textbook? Thirty should be able to share one just fine, if they take turns. Also, why bother with desks, when the students could just as well sit on the floor? The redundant books and desks can be used to fuel the fires the schoolchildren will have to learn to build in order to stay warm. How's that for out of the box? Note: The Lt. Gov.'s "Quick Start to Energy Star Resources for School Districts" page has a bunch of broken links. Hope that site didn't cost $15,000. Update 4:30 pm-ish: Denish spokeswoman Sam Thompson called to say that the links had been fixed. Also, that the nationwide Energy Star challenge "doesn't have anything to do with kids putting on a sweater." Rather, solar panels and the like. "We are trying to get the school districts thinking about ways they can save energy," Thompson says. "It's one of those things that's almost low-hanging fruit...[and] it's quite a bit of money." Fair enough.

Noting that some 4,000 New Mexicans will run out of unemployment benefits by the end of the year, the state's senior US Senator, Jeff Bingaman, wants his colleagues to pick up the pace on approving an extension of benefits. "It will not eliminate the dread [the unemployed] have about the need to pay bills every month, but it will make things a little bit easier for those individuals," Bingaman says. "The extension will make it easier not just for the direct recipients but for the larger economy as well. Economists tell us for every $1 in unemployment benefits, $2.15 is generated throughout the economy." Watch his speech here: "The job market in my home state of New Mexico is dismal, and there is very little indication of improvement expected in the near future," Bingaman says. "The total number of unemployed and underemployed—including those who are working two or three part-time jobs to try to make ends meet, and those who have given up looking for work—approaches 17 percent of our workforce." Read the full release from his office after the cut. BINGAMAN URGES QUICK PASSAGE OF UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS BILL WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman today said Congress should quickly take up and pass legislation to extend unemployment benefits to thousands of New Mexicans who have been unable to find a job in this difficult economic climate. The bill would extend unemployment insurance by up to 14 additional weeks for jobless workers in all states and up to 20 weeks in hard-hit states with unemployment levels at or above 8.5 percent.  New Mexico's unemployment rate as of August was 7.5 percent, up from 4.3 percent a year ago. “The pain of unemployment is being felt across the country.  More than 5 million Americans have been unemployed for 6 months or more and 2 million of those workers face the end of their unemployment benefits before the end of the year.  Up to 4,000 New Mexicans will exhaust their current unemployment benefits by the end of December,” Bingaman said today in a speech on the Senate floor. “The total number of unemployed and underemployed, including those who are working two or three part-time jobs to try and make ends meet and those who have given up looking for work, is approaching 17 percent.  These aren't just numbers, these are real people who face each day with the dread of not knowing how they are going to pay for this week's groceries or make the coming mortgage or rent payment,” he said. A vote on whether to take up the bill for debate is scheduled for Friday, but Bingaman said he hopes the Senate can come to an agreement that allows the bill to be finalized as soon as today. -30-

The Santa Fe New Mexican's Tom Sharpe breaks the news this morning that the New Mexico Free Press is ceasing publication for unexplained reasons. Whether it was lambasting Barack Obama's fascist-socialist takeover in lunatic columns "from the Wilderness," re-running Andy Rooney and Dave Barry's most stale material or deliberately putting a far-right spin on the most innocuous community news stories, the Free Press was truly a unique addition to Santa Fe's media landscape. It will be missed. By someone. The editor's mother, maybe? Lately the Free Press had taken to a subject near to this reporter's heart: the local economy. True, when it came to the financial issues facing most Santa Feans, the Free Press showed all the news judgment of a charter member in Joe the Plumber's Official Fan Club. But the paper from time to time showed some accidental insight, as it did with these encouraging words by reporter and columnist Brad Buck: More after the cut. This was from the Nov. 4 issue. Buck writes: Now, I can sympathize with those who are actively seeking work. They might apply for one to five jobs a day. That reflects what I did a couple of times in my life, and it's no fun. You're qualified to do many jobs, but not one will even give you an interview. Then, there are those who would rather sit home, be lazy and collect unemployment. That's money coming out of our pockets, of course. I feel no sympathy for these folks. In fact, their approach vexes me. If everyone would just stop being so lazy, this recession could be over tomorrow! I know some people who have practically given up on finding a job. Some of them are people whom I used to respect. I say, if you can find work, you ought to do it. No type of work is beneath anyone. That's a bitter pill for some people with college degrees. But if you're out of work, it's time to swallow your pride and go to work for less pay than what you used to make. When the economy improves, you'll get something better. SFR invites Buck to let us know how his job search pans out in the weeks and months ahead. In the meantime, he'll have plenty of time to Oops. Sharpe reports that Buck has already taken a job with Santa Fe Public Schools. Which still means more time catch up on Dancing With The Stars. Lucky duck.