CreditSlips

EU Update (And FI Reality)

09/02/12

If you've been tuning out the Euro situation, despite Gelpern's periodic updates, today's Times magazine has a since summary of where things stand.

I also think the end of this bit nicely captures the extant cynicism regarding financial institutions.

[more]

Consumer Bankruptcy Fee Study

09/01/12

I have just finished reading Lois Lupica’s paper on her impressive
consumer bankruptcy fee study. 
This is a model of what empirical, law-and-society research should be –
it combines data from electronic court records with focus groups and key player
interviews to give a textured understanding of the role lawyer’s fees play in
this particular legal system. 

[more]

National Mortgage Servicing Settlement Progress Report: Little to Show (And Little Expected)

08/31/12

The official monitor for the mortgage servicing fraud settlement has put out a progress report on settlement implementation.  It's a preliminary report that is not required of the monitor, so I don't want to be too critical, but I hope future reports are more informative.  Most of the report consists of summarizing the settlement.  There is a lot of data, but almost no analysis.

[more]

Why Housing?

08/31/12

Susan Wachter and I have a new paper out, entitled Why Housing?  The paper is a critical review of scholarly theories of the housing bubble.  It focuses on the question of what made housing vulnerable to a bubble and why it has been so hard to resuscitate the market.  

[more]

NYT on Student Loans in Bankruptcy

08/31/12

At the New York Times, Ron Lieber has a story about the treatment of student loans in bankruptcy. The story does a good job of explaining the harshness and capriciousness of the current system, but it is a story that bankruptcy lawyers and judgres already know.

[more]

Who Built It?

08/29/12

We're seeing the back and forth between the Dems and the GOP about "who built it," whether the economy is a function of both public and private action (as artfully expressed by Elizabeth Warren and clumsily imitated by the President) or purely private Galtian will-to-create entrepreneurship. The only interesting thing about the argument is that there even is an argument.

[more]

Why No Prosecutions

08/26/12

The NYTimes had a very good editorial today bemoaning, with resignation, that there will not be any serious prosecutions of senior bank executives or institutions for the financial crisis.  The biggest fish to be caught was Lee Farkas. Who? That's the point.

[more]

What's the Point of Billable Rates?

08/25/12

Felix Salmon has a very insightful post about lawyers' hourly billing rates.  His take:

differences in billable rates are basically an accounting fiction, which is used to come up with a calculable final figure to be presented as the bill, but which do not actually reflect the difference in value between various strata of lawyers. 

[more]

Cramdown and the Cost of Mortgage Credit

08/25/12

Joshua Goodman at the Harvard Kennedy School and I have a new paper out examining the impact of Chapter 13 cramdown on the cost and availability of mortgage credit.  Historically, when cramdown was permitted in some judicial districts prior to 1993 it was associated with a statistically significant, if small, increase in the cost of credit.

[more]