That's the name of this new report Public Citizen. Here's Public Citizen's description of the report: A decade after reaching their peak, the quantity and cumulative value of medical malpractice payments made on behalf of doctors were at their lowest level on record in 2012, according to a new Public Citizen analyzing data from the […]
The Washington Post reports today: Traders at Bank of America willfully misled investors about the quality of the residential mortgages tucked into the securities the bank sold at the start of the financial crisis, according to separate lawsuits filed Tuesday by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. . . . Justice claims […]
From time to time, news media run a story on car repair outfits that cheat consumers. Unfortunately, there seems to be an inexhaustible supply of such businesses, perhaps because most consumers lack the ability to determine if they are being ripped off by their mechanics. You can find another such story here.
Quinn Curtis of Virginia has written State Foreclosure Laws and Mortgage Origination in the Subprime Market, forthcoming in the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics. Here's the abstract: Foreclosure procedures in some states are considerably swifter and less costly for lenders than in others. In light of the foreclosure crisis, an empirical understanding of […]
Banks don't like to offer 30-year mortages unless someone else is left holding the bag if the homeowner can't pay. That's just too long a period to depend on repayment and market stability. But a 30-year payback period, all other things equal, helps many non-wealthy consumers buy homes. Banks will make 30-year loans if the […]
That's the name of this lengthy piece by Paul Kiel of ProPublica. It focuses on an effort in Missouri to cap the rates on payday loans. Here's a short excerpt: Outrage over payday loans, which trap millions of Americans in debt and are the best-known type of high-cost loans, has led to dozens of state […]
by Brian Wolfman Last week, I posted on Greenberg v. Proctor & Gamble, where the 6th circuit threw out a class-action settlement on the ground that (1) it provided virtually nothing of value to the class members while the named representatives got significant "incentive" payments ($1,000 times the number of their diaper-using kids), and the […]
by Brian Wolfman Today, in Greenberg v. Proctor & Gamble, by a 2-1 vote, the 6th circuit threw out a class-action settlement on the ground that (1) it provided virtually nothing of value to the class members while the named representatives got significant "incentive" payments ($1,000 times the number of their diaper-using kids), and the […]
by Jeff Sovern Here. The article reports on the case on which we previously blogged in which a woman won an $18.6 million verdict under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. And it provides more support for the reforms Ira Rheingold and I argued for in our recent Times op-ed: requiring credit bureaus to be more […]