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 […]
Jennifer L. Pomeranz of Temple's Department of Public Health has written Extending the Fantasy in the Supermarket: Where Unhealthy Food Promotions Meet Children and How the Government Can Intervene, 12 Indiana Health Law Review 117 (2012). Here's the abstract: This paper summarizes research concerning the extent of in-store marketing of foods to children and the […]
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 […]
Robert L. Clarke of Bracewell & Giuliani LLP and Todd J. Zywicki of George Mason University (Zywicki notes in an "about the authors" that he is a former director of the FTC's Office of Policy Planning but omits his links to the industry) have written Payday Lending, Bank Overdraft Protection, and Fair Competition at the Consumer […]
Adam J. Levitin of Georgetown has written The Paper Chase: Securitization, Foreclosure, and the Uncertainty of Mortgage Title, 63 Duke Law Journal 637 (2013). Here is the abstract: The mortgage foreclosure crisis raises legal questions as important as its economic impact. Questions that were straightforward and uncontroversial a generation ago today threaten the stability of […]
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 […]