That's the title of this piece in the New Scientist, which reveals another cause of widening economic inequality in the U.S.
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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today issued this 168-page compendium of preliminary research on the use of pre-dispute binding mandatory arbitration (BMA) clauses in consumer financial contracts. This document was released as part of CFPB's study on the use of BMA required by section 1028 of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law — the law that […]
A fascinating piece, particularly for those of us who didn't live through the struggle to pass the Fair Housing Act. As the website explains: "Where you live is important. It can dictate quality of schools and hospitals, as well as things like cancer rates, unemployment, or whether the city repairs roads in your neighborhood. On […]
Last week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued its semi-annual update to the agency's rulemaking agenda. Go here for a nice explanation of the current agenda. Below is the actual agenda, as published on OMB's website, with clickable links to the regulatory materials themselves. CFPB Prerule Stage Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (Regulation C) 3170-AA10 CFPB […]
Read this new report by the National Consumer Law Center, which maintains that incompetence and fraud in the tax preparation industry harms consumers. Here's how NCLC introduces its report: Each year, tens of millions of consumers rely upon paid tax preparers to help them file accurate and compliant tax returns, yet the majority of these […]
That is the headline for one of today's lead stories in the satirical journal The Daily Currant. The story is untrue, but sometimes satire drives home a point because what is satirical also seems plausible. After all, here, we know that Wal-Mart often doesn't pay enough for its employees to support themselves, let alone their […]
by Paul Alan Levy Scott Cleland’s weekly anti-Google rant raises the question whether Google’s recording of conversations through Google Glass, and Google’s use of those recordings as a source of data for its commercial operations, might run afoul of federal wire-tapping laws that require consent for the interception of communications, but it seems to me […]
The LA Times reports: The city of Los Angeles accused banking giants Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc. of a “continuous pattern and practice” of mortgage discrimination that led to a wave of foreclosures, reduced property tax revenue and increased costs for city services. In twin lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court, the city […]
In a follow-up to its three-part series on the tax-lien/foreclosure machine in Washington, D.C., the Washington Post has just published this investigative report on Aeon Financial, a secretive organization that bought up tax liens in D.C. (and elsewhere) and is making millions off of fees and foreclosures. Here's an excerpt: The firm that threatened to […]
by Brian Wolfman As explained in this article by Christopher Jensen, Hyundai is trying to "help" its customers by forcing them to arbitrate disputes over warranty coverage. That's awfully nice of the company. Once a dispute occurs, customers might be terribly confused over whether they should arbitrate, engage in some other form of informal resolution, or […]