As Fivethirtyeight explains, February saw the biggest one-month increase in the size of the labor force in over a year and continues the longest streak of gains in eight years. If this is a trend and not a blip, it's a significant reversal: Labor force participation has been a dark cloud hanging over the economy […]

An article by Paul Farhi in this morning’s Washington Post discusses a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump against the Timothy O'Brien, a financial author who wrote a book about Trump's business career.  Among other things, the book questioned whether Trump is quite as wealthy as he claims; the author’s opinion was that Trump had exaggerated […]

The Food and Drug Administration and Amarin, the manufacturer of a prescription fish-oil drug, have settled Amarin's lawsuit challenging the FDA's authority to restrict the company from touting its product for an unapproved use. The Washington Post reports that the FDA said the settlement is “specific to this particular case and situation,” and did not […]

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau yesterday released its latest supervision report where the exams of banks and nonbanks resulted in the remediation of $14.3 million to approximately 228,000 consumers. In its examinations covering the last months of 2015, the Bureau found violations in the student loan market, including illegal automatic defaults by student loan servicers […]

Here.  It's mostly about Florida Representative and Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz's proposal to derail the CFPB's possible payday lending rule that Brian blogged about a few days ago. Excerpt: [Wasserman's] spokesman, Sean Bartlett, said the legislation "is about preserving the shared goal of implementing strong consumer protections while also preserving access to […]

The Washington Post reports: A lawsuit stemming from Flint’s lead-contaminated water was filed Monday on behalf of the city’s residents against Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder as well as other current and former government officials and corporations. The federal lawsuit — which is seeking class-action status — alleges that tens of thousands of residents have suffered […]

The Wall Street Journal reports today: President Barack Obama on Monday defended his administration’s record on financial regulatory issues and said that shadow banking, cybersecurity, and rules governing executive compensation would be top priorities during his remaining months in office. On shadow banking in particular, regulators faced a challenging task in overseeing a new sector […]

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has announced that it is accepting complaints from consumers encountering problems with loans from online marketplace lenders. The CFPB is also releasing a consumer bulletin that provides an overview of marketplace lending and outlines tips for consumers who are considering taking out loans from these types of lenders. Millions of […]

Law professor Edward McCaffery has written Taxing Wealth Seriously, which argues that U.S. wealth inequality can be and should be reduced via tax policy. Here's the abstract: The social and political problems of wealth inequality in America are severe and getting worse. A surprise is that the U.S. tax system, as is, is a significant cause […]