The folks at EcoNews are reporting on the latest climate change data from NASA. Click here or on the embedded vido below to view a 15-second NASA time-lapse video that depicts the warming of the planet since 1950. Note that parts of the Arctic and Siberia have warmed as much as two to four degrees farenheit […]
The National Consumer Law Center has issued Tax-time consumer troubles, which warns consumers about a host of problems that they may encounter from largely worthless (but expensive) refund-anticipation products and from abuse and incompetence in the tax-preparation industry. We posted last December on NCLC's comprehensive report on that industry, which included specific proposals for reform.
A bit over a year ago, I discussed on this blog a petition that we filed in the Virginia Supreme Court seeking to set aside a preliminary injunction issued by a state trial judge in a defamation suit filed by a Maryland contractor, Christopher Dietz, against a Virginia woman, Jane Perez, who had posted reviews […]
by Jeff Sovern Here (behind a paywall). Cordray was testifying before the House Financial Services Committee and, according to the article, was subject to some attacks that seem absurd, at least to me. Excerpt: [Rep. Stevan Pearce, R-N.M] suggested that data collection undertaken by the CFPB could be passed onto political campaigns. "But I will […]
Does federal law require debt collectors to give consumers the right to make oral disputes (as the Second and Ninth Circuits have held), or may debt collectors insist that any disputes be made in writing (as the Third Circuit has held)? Today, the Fourth Circuit issued a short published opinion agreeing with the Second and […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau brought an administrative enforcement action yesterday against morgage originator giant PHH Corporation alleging, among other things, violations of the anti-kickback provisions of The Real Estate Settlements Procedures Act (RESPA). To quote the agency's press release: Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) initiated an administrative proceeding against PHH Corporation and […]
Here. Here's a list of the articles: Credit Reports and Employment: Findings from the 2012 National Survey on Credit Card Debt of Low- and Middle-Income Households by Amy Traub · Medical Debt and Its Relevance When Assessing Creditworthiness by Mark Rukavina Discriminatory Effects of Credit Scoring on Communities of Color by Lisa Rice and Deidre Swesnik The Misconception of […]
A succinct summary of today's opinion in Starr Int'l v. Fed. Reserve Bank of N.Y.: This suit challenges the extraordinary measures taken by FRBNY to rescue AIG from bankruptcy at the height of the direst financial crisis in modern times. In light of the direct conflict these measures created between the private duties imposed by […]
Even as the Supreme Court has aggressively wielded the Federal Arbitration Act to preempt state-law contract rules that prevent arbitration, state courts have still been able to use traditional contract doctrines to invalidate arbitration agreements that are unfairly "one-sided" — for instance, where an agreement provides that a business gets to bring its claims in […]
James Angel of Georgetown's Finance Department and Douglas M. McCabe of Georgetown's Management Department have written The Ethics of Payments: Paper, Plastic, or Bitcoin? Here is the abstract: Individuals and businesses make billions of payments every day in various forms. Payers have choices about what forms of payment they will make, and payees also have […]