CreditSlips

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's new study (published 3/25/14) regarding payday loans has received substantial press coverage over the past couple days. The study focuses on repeat customers and finds that 80% of payday loans effectively are rolled over--that is, another loan is taken out within 14 days of repayment of the prior loan.

The IRS has spoken:  Bitcoins are property, not currency.  This was hardly a surprise, but it has some important implication that tells us a lot about what it takes to make a currency work.  

Today is the day for filing amicus briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court in NML v. Argentina (pari passu case). Brazil, France, Mexico, the Jubilee Network and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz are all asking the court to take the case.

At a conference on consumer bankruptcy policy over the weekend in At

If you are looking for trite and oversimplified assertions about bankruptcy stigma, then stay away from the latest issue of the American Bankruptcy Law Journal. In those pages, Professor Michael Sousa from the University of Denver has a wonderful paper reporting on his interviews with consumer bankruptcy debtors in Colorado. You can find a preprint version of the paper on SSRN.