In 1962, the net worth of the wealthiest 1% of Americans had 125 times the net worth of the median household. That number is now 288, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute. That study is discussed in this CNNMoney article. EPI's full report provides many more details. Note the chart below, which […]
Author Archives: Brian Wolfman
Of course, debt collectors always make money because people's loans are in default. But student loan debt appears to be especially attractive for debt collectors, as explained in this article by Andrew Martin. Why? Among other reasons, the government helps debt collectors track down many of the debtors, and it is very hard to discharge […]
Here's an explanation: U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren is a superstar within the Democratic Party and a lightning rod for Republican outrage over the issue of tax fairness. But there is one tax that Warren doesn't like and it's part of Obamacare. The 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices is a little-known provision in […]
This article by Todd Ruger compares the views of President Obama and former Governor Romeny on legal issues, including judicial nominations.
This Washington Post article from last Friday explains that a coalition of the top state highway safety officers want to ban hand-held cell phone use by drivers. But their ultimate goal is probably a ban on all cell-phone use by drivers — hand-held or hands-free — because, as we've explained earlier, studies show that hands-free cell […]
One of things that bothers opponents of binding pre-dispute mandatory agreements in consumer contracts is that often they don't seem like agreements at all. In most cases, the arbitration clauses are buried in take-or-leave-it contracts that the consumer doesn't read (and sometimes has little opportunity to read). Arbitration opponents sometimes say that contracts of adhesion […]
The cancellation of indebtedness generally produces income for federal and state income tax purposes. But as LA Times writer Jim Puzzanghera explains, "in 2007, Congress enacted the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act to give struggling homeowners a break. If the debt is forgiven because of a drop in a home's value or a decline in […]
We reported earlier on the national mortgage fraud settlement between the federal government, state attorneys general, and the five largest mortgage servicers. (Go here and here, for instance.) The settlement's official website has lots of information, including an executive summary, which sets out some of the settlement's key terms. The summary discusses the billions of […]
Yesterday, we posted on President Obama's statement that if other means of curbing corporate election spending fail, he would consider a constitutional amendment to overrule the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. The President thought it possible that the Court would itself overrule Citizens United, but that seems unlikely in the near term in light of […]
Read this AP story. Here's an excerpt: Patient after patient asked: Is eating organic food, which costs more, really better for me? Unsure, Stanford University doctors dug through reams of research to find out — and concluded there’s little evidence that going organic is much healthier, citing only a few differences involving pesticides and antibiotics. […]