by Paul Alan Levy Over at Internet Daily’s Policy Blog, Wendy Davis brings us news that the Montana Standard, the daily paper in Butte Montana, is retroactively changing its policy for the posting of online comments to stories on its web site. The current policy, which will apparently continue in effect until January 1, allows […]
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In 2014, the U.S. Department of Education adopted the “gainful employment” rule to address overwhelming evidence that some postsecondary career training programs, particularly at for-profit institutions, were failing to prepare students for jobs that would enable them to repay their federal student debt, thus endangering the federal government’s investment in these schools by way of […]
Overall, the program has been working well, the Nobel laureate chronicles: -The uninsured rate has dropped sharply -Most employers are not (as previously feared) dropping coverage for employees -Costs are lower than expected And Krugman puts some recent bad news (about rising premiums, for instance) into perspective. Read Krugman's op-ed here.
The Wall Street Journal reports on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's consideration of a rule requiring lenders to provide detailed data on loan applications, in an effort to prevent discrimination against small businesses and businesses owned by women and minorities. "To do that, the agency would require lenders to provide detailed data on loan applications, […]
Politico reports: The FCC has announced a series of eye-popping fines against companies over the past two years: Roughly $100 million against nearly a dozen firms for defrauding a phone subsidy program, $35 million against a Chinese company for selling illegal wireless jamming equipment, and $100 million against AT&T this June for throttling customers on […]
With so many avenues to challenge the use of forced arbitration clauses in consumer contracts closed off by Supreme Court precedent, plaintiffs tried another one: allege that so many credit card companies' parallel adoption of the clauses was collusive and therefore violated antitrust law. But the district court dismissed the challenge and yesterday the Second […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today posted its current rulemaking agenda. Its "current initiatives" address arbitration; payday, auto title, and similar lending products; pre-paid accounts; overdraft; debt collection; larger participants and non-depository lender registration; Women-owned, minority-owned, and small businesses data collection; mortgage servicing; and implementation of various mortgage rules. The CFPB announcement has a summary. […]
In response to our recent discussion of the TPP, alert reader Matthew Bruckner pointed out that NPR's Planet Money podcast covered the trade pact recently. Unfortunately, many of the aspects covered were the traditional tariff-related aspects of the deal rather than provisions like ISDS that make it so dangerous. And even as to ISDS, the reporters seem to […]
The Federal Trade Commission has approved final amendments to its Telemarketing Sales Rule, including a change that will help protect consumers from fraud by prohibiting four discrete types of payment methods favored by con artists and scammers. The rule changes will stop telemarketers from dipping directly into consumer bank accounts by using certain kinds of […]
A bill that would limit the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s 2013 auto lending guidance passed the House of Representatives late Wednesday. Automotive News explains that "H.R. 1737 — the Reforming CFPB Indirect Auto Financing Guidance Act — would revoke 2013 auto lending guidance from the CFPB. The guidance suggests lenders should either impose limits on […]