As if the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, spawned from the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, wasn’t controversial enough, it is now under fire as a result of President Obama’s “recess” appointment of its new director, Richard Cordray. The quotation marks are there because the appointment is certain to come under legal challenges by [...]
Continue Reading →So, the big news hit the wires over the weekend: Nine Eurozone Countries to be Downgraded by Standard & Poor’s. Excuse me while I yawn. Was anybody actually surprised by this? For the few people who thought the Eurozone experiment would actually work – 16 countries with completely different cultures, economies, and fiscal policies give [...]
Continue Reading →In what appears to be the biggest financial news story of the week (it was a real slow week for financial news), we learn that the venerable, personal finance pop icon, Suze Orman, has come out with her own pre-paid MasterCard, called the “Approved Card.” This is not totally surprising. After all, the Kardashians left [...]
Continue Reading →The recession seems to be taking a back seat as more people pull out their credit cards to pay for everyday items. According to The Christian Science Monitor, consumers racked up a total of $64 billion in credit card debt for the year 2011, and January 2012 has already seen an increase in credit card [...]
Continue Reading →The strategic default: deadbeats or financial geniuses? The good news in the housing market is that, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the delinquency rate for mortgage loans has fallen to 7.99 percent down. That is nearly a half a point from the prior quarter and over a point from the prior year. The bad news [...]
Continue Reading →As the jobs market continues to drag along, millions of people are deciding to go it alone by taking the entrepreneurial plunge. Many are launching starting a new business right from their kitchen table and some are harboring dreams of the “next big thing.” In almost all cases, starting a new business requires some amount [...]
Continue Reading →In what could be a major game-changer for both lenders and consumers, CoreLogic Credco, a major financial data aggregator, has just introduced its new CoreScore into the credit score mix. The new score, based on a heap of additional consumer credit and payment activity not previously reported to the credit bureaus, is said to provide [...]
Continue Reading →Do you know how to take advantage of 2011 tax deductions before 2012? There is perhaps no busier time of year than the holiday season – holiday shopping and preparations, planning Christmas vacation, closing out year-end business, all while trying to squeeze in as many college football bowl games as is humanly possible. Financial matters [...]
Continue Reading →Don’t tell the 150 million smart phone users, but someone knows every move they make, literally. From their physical location to the exact key strokes they make on their phone, smart phone and credit card users are an open book to their phone carriers, their credit card companies and their banks. And short of tossing [...]
Continue Reading →The fraud and rip-off brain trust is constantly evolving, innovating and striving to get into your wallet. The Internet is a virtual incubator of diabolical scams ready to be unleashed on a billion people all at once. But the real challenge facing consumers is that most of the scams and rip-offs they encounter are perpetrated [...]
Continue Reading →Ever since the introduction of variable life insurance in the 1950s, the debate over life insurance as an investment has raged on, and to this day, the issue remains largely unsettled. Life insurance advocates can make a case for its unique properties – tax deferred growth, tax free death benefit, low interest loan provisions, and [...]
Continue Reading →Student loan debt has skyrocketed in the last decade growing at a rate of nearly 50% per year. Many graduates find themselves crushed under the weight of their college loans before they have had a chance to go out and earn the income needed to repay it. While future college students need to seriously consider [...]
Continue Reading →It’s almost uncanny how this all works. The violence and debauchery of the misguided and self-indulgent Occupy movement has peaked just in time to draw all of the media attention away from the biggest problem both the 99% and the 1% face in the immediate future. Headlines of OWS miscreants terrorizing school children and throwing acid [...]
Continue Reading →Among the myriad of new financial reform measures mandated by the Dodd-Frank bill two years ago was the creation of the Consumer Bureau of Financial Protection, a watchdog agency with the responsibility of ensuring that financial companies are following the law in their lending practices. Specifically, it is tasked with ensuring that all financial companies [...]
Continue Reading →Is Congress insider trading taking place while Americans are trying to make ends meet? Within a two-week span, it was reported that the number of people in the U.S. living in poverty rose for the fourth year in row, climbing to the highest number in a half a century. On the heels of that grim [...]
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