CreditSlips

See the Wreckage and the Damage Done

11/14/11

I've been remiss about cross-posting my Dealbook columns, but my two most recent (here and here) focus on the Dynegy chapter 11 case.

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New Balick Chair at Widener Law School

11/10/11

Many Credit Slips readers will remember Judge Helen S. Balick who presided over the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The Widener School of Law has established a chair in her honor and invites persons to apply to serve as the first Helen S. Balick Chair in Business Bankruptcy Law. More details about the position are available here.

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The Multistate Foreclosure Settlement

11/09/11

The New York Times came out with a strong editorial urging state AGs and the Administration not to rush into the proposed multi-state settlement deal. I think it's worthwhile reviewing what we know about the deal and the arguments for and against it.

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The US's Missing Housing Policy

11/09/11

The United States has no housing policy. And there's none on the horizon either. That's a scary thing, given the centrality of housing to domestic economic woes.  

Once upon a time, the US had a housing policy. It was focused on increasing homeownership. It might have been a misguided policy or at least a policy taken too far, but it was a policy and everyone understood that. It meant that programs were designed to work toward that goal.

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Change.org Petition Plays Part in BoA Debit Fee Reversal

11/07/11

In early October of 2011, Bank of America announced that it would begin charging its customers an additional $5 users fee for using its debit cards. In my financial literacy class the weekend after the announcement, some students were resigned to it, some furious, but we all vowed to switch banks if we banked at BofA. Yet we all also knew what would happen next, if history was any indication. Other banks would follow suit and eventually we’d all get charged the fee, which would just go up even more over time.

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Get your Independent Foreclosure Review!

11/05/11

OCC and the Federal Reserve announced this week that banks who service mortgages will be sending letters to homeowners this month and next, offering them an opportunity to request review of any 2009 or 2010 foreclosure.  Every homeowner who asks gets a full independent review by a foreclosure auditor.  A homeowner

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Never Mind Eupdate, Greek Referendum Edition

11/03/11

No more referendum. Still my candidate for the most important moment in this crisis. The possibility of a referendum, and of exiting the Euro, stays on the table -- as well it should. The persistent fog in Europe's Plan A, and the palpable absence of anything resembling Plan B, are chilling.

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CDS Again

11/03/11

I want to draw about two trillion underlines under Alphaville's point that

we’d also like to know about concentration. That is, are there just a few counterparties out there that are big net sellers of Italy CDS or are there many? Which CDS have the most non-dealers involved?

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Eupdate Game-Changer: The Greek Referendum

11/01/11

The Greek authorities' decision to hold a referendum on the new Eurozone rescue package strikes me as the most interesting and potentially consequential development in the crisis in a very long time. It is potentially more consequential than last summer's breakthrough and 

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The Multistate Settlement Lottery: Bupkis

10/31/11

The NY Times had some details today about the multi-state attorney general mortgage servicing settlement in the works. It looks every bit as awful as one might have feared. Here's the criticial take-away:  this is bupkis. It gives meaningless relief to a meaningless number of randomly or adversely selected homeowners.  It doesn't do justice, even by halves. 

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