CreditSlips

Break up Bank of America?

01/25/12

Steve's title was subtle, so in case anyone missed it, here are the materials on Public Citizen's website. The petition calls on the Federal Reserve and the Financial Stability Oversight Commission to use their authority under Dodd-Frank to break up Bank of America.

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And the Wind Blows Wild Again

01/24/12

I wade into the chapter 11 professional fee debate again, this time in the context of the UST's proposed guidlines for attorneys fees in big cases.

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Should the Government or the Market Set Mortgage Down Payments? A New Study

01/24/12

UNC's Center for Community Capital has posted a new analysis of 19.5 million mortgage loans originated between 2000 and 2008 finding that mandatory down payments of 10% would lock out nearly 40% of all creditworthy borrowers while a 20% down payment would exclude 60%.  The study finds a significantly higher exclusion r

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How to Address Apparent Racial Disparity in the Consumer Bankruptcy System

01/21/12

The article discussed in the N.Y. Times story today is heavily empirical. It is also deliberately light on the prescriptive.

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Race and Chapter 13

01/21/12

As Adam noted in his kind post, the New York Times today featured our study, "Race, Attorney Influence, and Bankruptcy Chapter Choice." My co-authors are Credit Slips blogger Jean Braucher, a law professor at the University of Arizona, and Dov Cohen, a professor at the University of Illinois who holds a cross appointment in psychology and law. And, we all express many thanks to the NYT reporter, Tara Siegel Bernard, who spent a lot of time slogging through the statistics and legal intricacies in our study.

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Kudos to Jean Braucher and Bob Lawless!

01/21/12

A new study by Credit Slips own Jean Braucher and Bob Lawless (with Dov Cohen) on race and bankruptcy filings received very prominent and well-deserved page A1 coverage in the New York Times.  It's a fabulous study, and it's wonderful to see it getting such great media attention. 

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Payday Loans are First Target of New Consumer Protection Chief

01/19/12

Richard Cordray’s first CFPB hearing will be held today and will focus on the practices of payday lenders. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia already outlaw payday loans, but in all of the others, lenders can and do charge 400% interest or more, on loans against consumers' next paycheck.

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Kindle and ePub Versions of Bankruptcy Code (Updated)

01/19/12

One of my crack research assistants, Scott Cromar, put together electronic versions of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code and Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure (FRBP) that can be read using Amazon Kindle or an ePub reader. Because these books were assembled using public-domain materials from the U.S. government, we are making them available free of charge. Keep reading after the page break for links and more information.

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SOPA, PIPA, and Us

01/18/12

Given what a small part of the web we are, it seemed a little melodramatic for Credit Slips to go dark over the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA). It did seem appropriate at least to add my own voice to the opposition.

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Bankruptcy, Backwards

01/16/12

Credit Slips Own Anna Gelpern has a great new article in the Yale Law Journal that very much deserves a plug. It's called "Bankruptcy, Backwards:  The Problem of Quasi-Sovereign Debt." The article deals with the problems of financial distress for quasi-sovereigns, like US states or even to some degree EU member states.

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