In the fiscal cliff negotiations, a lot is on the table. One policy formally viewed as untouchable but now up for discussion, the Washington Post reports, is the mortgage-interest deduction, which is designed to encourage home ownership but has been criticized as responsible for inflating home prices and benefiting the wealthy disproportionally. The Post story […]
by Brian Wolfman One of the nice things about the Internet is that it brings down the cost of communicating with the public, potentially democratizing free speech. At fairly low cost, consumers can establish websites that criticize big businesses. Sometimes those big businesses don't like that and sue the owners of the critical websites. Often […]
As explained here, the Environmental Protection Agency has banned BP from future federal contracts in light of the company's "lack of business integrity" evidenced by its misconduct surrounding the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The ban is temporary and will be lifted when BP, according to the EPA, "can provide sufficient evidence […]
This article by Richard Chen provides a bunch of tips about how to protect your privacy on the Internet. Among other things, he suggests forgoing Google for DuckDuckGo, which claims that it doesn't send information about you to other sites (as Google does) and doesn't collect personal information about you (as Google does) — for […]
Here. Some highlights: Of the 92 financial institutions studied, 43 percent contain mandatory binding arbitration clauses. This number increases to 47 percent when considering only banks, because none of the credit unions studied include an arbitration clause in their account agreements. * * * The larger the financial institution, the more likely an account agreement will […]
Here. Here is the key finding section of the report: The Federal Reserve has set an embarrassingly low bar for issuer disclosures, as evidenced by the 7.5% score its model disclosure received in this study. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau obviously recognized the inherent flaws with the Federal Reserve’s implemented guidelines for credit card disclosures […]
Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court in D.C. has issued this this major opinion imposing corrective remedies in the federal government's 13-year-old RICO suit against the tobacco industry. Judge Kessler has issued a separate order mandating that the tobacco companies publish "corrective statements" on five topics "on which the Court found they had […]
by Jeff Sovern One of the groups, the Woodstock Institute, has a report here. Among the reasons given are Wells Fargo's payday lending practices. The following excerpt from the Woodstock report has more: "Wells Fargo's mortgage servicing practices unfairly push some borrowers into foreclosure, devastating families and harming neighborhoods. Our clients continue to have their […]
Here. Behind a paywall, unfortunately. But here's a quote: In more than 2,000 letters responding to the CFPB's plan,bankers said several requirements — including a rigorous timeline for presenting borrowers with the new forms, limited deviation of estimated charges between initial and final disclosures, and an "all-in" annual percentage rate — will add constraints and […]
by Brian Wolfman Thousands of our readers follow the CL&P Blog by receiving a daily email with the full text of each post. That function has been "down" since around November 20. Thanks to the excellent technological sleuthing of CL&P contributor and computer geek Greg Beck, the problem has been fixed! Today, those of you […]