The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced yesterday the "Payback Playbook"—a set of prototype disclosures that outline a path to affordable payments for borrowers trying to avoid student debt distress. The CFPB explained that Payback Playbook provides borrowers with personalized information about their repayment options from loan servicers so they can secure a monthly payment they […]
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A thoughtful article in the New York Times Magazine this week posits that TV has largely shifted from portraying working class and middle class struggles (from mid-century to the early 90s) to shows largely focused on hanging out and that exist in a classless vacuum (for the past twenty years). As a result, blue collar workers […]
A lot is going on in yesterday's decision in FTC v. Amazon, 2016 WL 1643973 (W.D. Wash. Apr. 26, 2016) — some excellent and some troubling. First, the good news. A Seattle district court held that Amazon engaged in unfair or deceptive practices when it embedded within its apps options to take actions that cost real […]
Check out this fascinating report in Wired last week, which explains how Cornell Tech researchers cracked the code to shortened URLs from Microsoft and Google and as a result were about to figure out personal information about specific individuals: "By guessing at shortened URLs until they found working ones, the researchers say that they could have […]
A new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a link between exposure to e-cigarette advertisements and the use of e-cigarettes by middle and high school students. The study is the first to assess the link between exposure to e-cigarette advertising and current e-cigarette use, and it concludes that efforts to reduce […]
Yesterday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered the debt collection law firm Pressler & Pressler, LLP, two principal partners, and New Century Financial Services, Inc., a debt buyer, to stop churning out unfair and deceptive debt collection lawsuits based on flimsy or nonexistent evidence. The consent orders bar the companies and individuals from illegal practices […]
Listen to NPR's report last week, here.
Researchers at George Washington University have found that "people who eat fast food tend to have significantly higher levels of certain phthalates, which are commonly used in consumer products such as soap and makeup to make them less brittle but have been linked to a number of adverse health outcomes, including higher rates of infertility, especially […]
More than 300 kids have been killed and almost that many seriously injured when they've gotten tangled up in blind cords, the Post reports. It describes the deaths in chilling fashion: "The deaths are fast and silent. Often, the parent is in the same room and turns away to change a channel or put away […]
Borrowers who obtain loan forgiveness based on disability or families who have student debt discharged based on the death of a child have to pay taxes on that benefit under current law. Now three senators are pushing for relief. Marketwatch reports, citing the example of "a Maine couple who were able to have their son’s […]