Light blogging this week
August 30, 2010 | Uncategorized | Comments (0)Payday Pundit will be on vacation. Not much news anyway.
Republicans warming to Warren
August 30, 2010 | CFPB Nomination, Elizabeth Warren, Financial Reform Bill - CFPB, federal legislation | Comments (0)From the Wall Street Journal:
Could Elizabeth Warren’s outspokenness yet prove a plus? A whisper is that some Republicans are warming to Ms. Warren as the first consumer financial-affairs regulator over another candidate, Treasury Department Assistant Secretary Michael Barr. The thinking: Ms. Warren isn’t shy about speaking her mind, so banks would know what was coming. Some fear Mr. Barr would be more circumspect but end up hitting bankers with surprise initiatives. But all that could be moot. One idea doing the rounds in Washington is that President Obama might name Ms. Warren when Congress is out of session, avoiding a confirmation hearing until next year.
Unintended consequences cont.
August 28, 2010 | alternatives, federal legislation | Comments (0)Banks have found away around credit card reform rules. From the story:
Professional cards aren’t covered under the Credit Card Accountability and Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, or Card Act for short. Among other things, the law prohibits issuers from controversial billing practices such as hair-trigger interest rate increases, shortened payment cycles and inactivity fees—but it doesn’t apply to professional cards (see table).
Until recently professional cards largely had been reserved for small-business owners or corporate executives. But since the Card Act was passed in March 2009, companies have been inundating ordinary consumers with applications. In the first quarter of 2010, issuers mailed out 47 million professional offers, a 256% increase from the same period last year, according to research firm Synovate.
Some bad people out there
August 27, 2010 | customers | Comments (0)And Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is after them.
Comment of the Day
August 27, 2010 | Uncategorized | Comments (0)What?! Reporters in Britain actually research the topics that they report?! Even if it forces them to deal with a little math?!!
Ridiculous! It’s so much easier to simply regurgitate a popular opinion, mixed with harsh negative attacks and a little fear.
What?
August 27, 2010 | CFPB Nomination, Elizabeth Warren, Financial Reform Bill - CFPB, federal legislation | Comments (1)From the Wall Street Journal:
Is Barney Frank after Elizabeth Warren’s job? Frank is supporting Elizabeth Warren to head the new Consumer Financial Protection. But Alain Sherter reports that “Citing a source on the House Financial Services Committee “close to” Frank, who chairs the panel, bank analyst Christopher Whalen of Institutional Risk Analytics says the Massachusetts Democrat is throwing his cudgel into the ring.” Frank denies this, though.
I doubt this. I don’t think the Chairman of the House Financiall Services Committee would settle for anything less than a cabinet secretary level job if he were to go into the administration.
Let’s read more tea leafs
August 26, 2010 | CFPB Nomination, Elizabeth Warren, Financial Reform Bill - CFPB, federal legislation | Comments (0)From the Wall Street Journal:
White House advisor Valerie Jarrett is playing a central role in the Obama administration’s deliberations over whom to pick to run the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, two people familiar with the matter said.
Jarrett’s involvement could bode well for Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren, considered a top candidate for the potential job. Jarrett and Warren have met multiple times in the last year and are considered to be close.
They lunched together on July 21, the day President Barack Obama signed the financial-overhaul bill into law. They met again at the White House a few weeks later, along with David Axelrod, another White House advisor.
But who’s she having lunch with today?
HuffPo can’t give it a rest
August 26, 2010 | CFPB Nomination, Elizabeth Warren, Financial Reform Bill - CFPB, federal legislation | Comments (0)The Huffington Post’s campaign for Elizabeth Warren to head the BCFP continues:
In questioning Elizabeth Warren’s candidacy to lead a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd has repeatedly questioned whether Warren possesses the appropriate management experience to lead a large federal bureaucracy.
But it’s the first time Chairman Dodd has publicly raised such an issue when it came to evaluating presidential nominees to agency positions under the banking committee’s purview.
The rest of the piece is just railing about Dodd.
Comment of the Day
August 26, 2010 | Uncategorized | Comments (1)So basically take the business away from main street payday lenders and give it to wall street banks and credit unions!!!
Exactly
August 26, 2010 | international | Comments (1)As the payday lending debate heats up in Britain, the “moneyblog” at a Left-wing newspaper, The Guardian, says this:
This week’s YouGov omnibus survey for Compass appeared to find overwhelming public support for a cap on interest rates as a solution: 68% of respondents believe there should be a lending rate cap to cover all forms of consumer credit, including the unsecured credit sector.
I can see how this seems like a sensible way of helping prevent people who are seeking short-term credit for small loans from being exploited, particularly those seeking loans from home credit and payday lenders. After all, some payday lenders from America charge over 2500% APR. However, these sky-high APRs exaggerate the true cost of this type of credit.
Interest rates reflect more than the cost of money. Last year’s report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation into the feasibility of a not-for-profit home credit business found that, even on a not-for-profit basis, to make the service financially sustainable the percentage cost of home credit would be over 100%.
