In a piece for the Washington Post wntitled In expensive cities, rents fall for the rich — but rise for the poor, Jeff Stein writes: U.S. cities struggling with soaring housing costs have found some success in lowering rents this year, but that relief has not reached the renters most at risk of losing their housing. […]
Tamara R. Piety of Tulsa has written Advertising as Experimentation on Human Subjects. Here's the abstract: Within the industry, it is an article of faith that consumers distrust advertising. One reason for that distrust may be that they fear being manipulated. Yet the debate about advertising and manipulation always seems to revolve around how much manipulation […]
by Jeff Sovern That's the question David Dayen raises in an important essay in InTheseTimes, Trump Appointees Are Pushing a Deregulation Plan That Could Dramatically Erode Consumer Protections. As Dayen points out, in the run-up to the Great Recession, the OCC proclaimed that state anti-predatory lending laws were preempted as to national banks. We know […]
Rory Van Loo of BU has written Technology Regulation by Default: Platforms, Privacy, and the CFPB. Here's the abstract: In the absence of a technology-focused regulator, diverse administrative agencies have been forced to develop regulatory models for governing their sphere of the data economy. These largely uncoordinated efforts offer a laboratory of regulatory experimentation on governance architecture. […]
by Jeff Sovern Here is a report by Kate Berry in the American Banker (behind paywall). A vote for her would be a vote for someone without experience in or any demonstrated knowledge of consumer law and for someone who professes to value transparency but who was not transparent during her confirmation hearings. UPDATE: Evan Weinberger […]
I thought our readers might be interested in this article by Peter Holley, which does a short survey of the state of the self-driving truck industry. While explaining that Uber is getting out of the self-driving business for now, the article suggests that we can expect seeing driverless trucks pretty soon. One company is planning to make […]
As most of you likely know, Trump's Treasury Department has floated the idea of indexing capital gains to inflation, thereby reducing the tax due from owners of stocks and other investments when they sell those investments at a gain. (The administration has even suggested that this change could be done administratively, without congressional approval.) As this […]
That's the name of this LA Times article by David Lazurus, which explains that Americans of all political stripes support a strong Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. A survey conducted for Americans for Financial Reform and the Center for Responsible Lending shows "that an overwhelming majority of Americans — at least 80% — are concerned about the Trump administration’s […]
Today, the Center for Responsible Lending released a new report examining the repayment experiences of borrowers of longer-term payday loans in Colorado. The report is based on focus groups that were conducted in four Colorado cities in September 2017. The full report is worth the read, but here are the key takeaways: In many cases, […]
by Jeff Sovern David Dayen has coined the phrase, the "Mulvaney Discount," to describe the tendency of CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney to settle cases for less than the original amount. As Dayen and others have pointed out, Mulvaney's CFPB has been announcing more enforcement cases than it did in his first six months. That's […]