The 2010 Dodd-Frank law prescribed 390 rule-making requirements and 249 now have finalized rules, while another 58 have rule proposals, according to a study by the law firm Davis Polk. That means about one fifth of the required rules haven't even been proposed. You can read about it in the WSJ (subscription required, unfortunately), here. […]
The Washington Post reports on a new study in the American Journal of Epidemiology supporting the conclusion that "The most disadvantaged are more likely — and have grown even more likely over time — to die in car crashes than people who are well-off." Indeed, "the inequality of traffic fatalities is getting worse, even as it […]
Read Karen Heller's article in the Washington Post.
The late great Jean Braucher and Barak Orbach, both of Arizona, have written Scamming: The Misunderstood Confidence Man, 27 Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, (2015, Forthcoming). Here's the abstract: Samuel Thompson, the swindler who gave name to confidence men (“con men”) was “a man of genteel appearance,” “ladies’ man,” and gifted with “persuasive powers.” […]
… reports the Times: [T]he soda industry is winning the policy battles over the future of its product. But the bigger picture is that soda companies are losing the war. Even as anti-obesity campaigners like [Philadelphia Mayor Michael A.] Nutter have failed to pass taxes, they have accomplished something larger. In the course of the fight, […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau yesterday announced an enforcement action against an indirect auto finance company and its auto title lending subsidiary for pressuring borrowers using illegal debt collection tactics. The CFPB found that Westlake Services, LLC and Wilshire Consumer Credit, LLC deceived consumers by calling under false pretenses and using phony caller ID information, […]
Over two years, a hack of Experian apparently acquired the records of 15 million T-Mobile customers and people who had applied for credit. Experian, the vendor that processes T-Mobile's credit applications. T-Mobile's CEO posted a letter on the company's website to explain: We have been notified by Experian, a vendor that processes our credit applications, […]
The New York Times reports: Consumer lending firms that focus on borrowers with weak credit have done surprisingly well in the last few years. Many survived the financial crisis of 2008, the Great Recession, and even went on to post strong profits in the face of an onslaught of new regulations. Now, though, these lenders […]
The Hill reports: Payday lenders contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds to nearly a dozen House Republicans over the last four years, according to the report from Allied Progress, a government accountability organization run by Democratic strategist Karl Frisch. The campaign contributions coincided with votes taken by many of these Republicans that […]
What does a Better Business Bureau rating mean? Not much, according to a expose from CNNMoney posted yesterday. The article gives the following examples of businesses that sported an A+ rating on BBB: A mortgage broker charged by federal regulators with discriminating against minority borrowers. A financial firm accused in an ongoing federal lawsuit of […]