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Bankruptcy

Credit Slips

A discussion on credit and bankruptcy.
By Bob Lawless, Adam Levitin, Angie Littwin, Katie Porter, John Pottow, Debb Thorne, Elizabeth Warren

Post Frequency: 12.8/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 09:01:41

Easterbrook: Banks Free to Gouge Consumers (at least for now)

Posted on March 20, 2009
Yesterday the Seventh Circuit upheld a district court decision permitting the retroactive application of penalty credit card interest rates to existing balances. Writing for the court, Judge Frank Easterbrook noted that (1) the plaintiff's state law claims were preempted by...

Warning: Credit Card Practices Can Be Detrimental to Your (and Their) Health

Posted on March 19, 2009
Here is another example from the list of ?things that we saw coming, but nobody cared.? Credit card companies are suffering from record default rates. In the fourth quarter of 2008, credit card companies charged off ? declared as uncollectible...

Austrian Banks, East European Subprime, and Hungarian Consumer Bankruptcy

Posted on March 19, 2009
Change the names, and you don't even have to read the rest of the story any more. Europe and the United States are on parallel tracks to hell in a handbasket. Today's Washington Post has a fascinating story on the...

Is AIG Insolvent?

Posted on March 18, 2009
Apparently just about every law professor in the country had the same reaction I did upon reading that the AIG bonuses were paid because the contracts were binding, a reaction that can probably be summed up as: ?What??? As a...

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Rx Contract Abrogation (Use Only As Directed)

Posted on March 18, 2009
Former Credit Slips guest blogger Anna Gelpern has a nice post on AIG and contract abrogation on Nouriel Roubini's RGE Monitor. Anna argues that there are times when abrogating contracts makes sense, but that AIG just isn't one of them....

Rebuilding the Retirement Dream

Posted on March 17, 2009
Ahh, retirement ? so many possibilities, so little time! Turns out that for millions of Americans the dream of a secure retirement was just a dream. From 2007 to 2008, total retirement wealth in private and public sector pension plans...

Whatever Happened to Bankruptcy?

Posted on March 17, 2009
It's hard to remember in the midst of the bailout craze, but the United States does have legal mechanisms for dealing with insolvency. We have the FDIC system for banks and bankruptcy for everyone else just about. These are well-established...

AIG--My Very Own Rick Santelli Moment

Posted on March 17, 2009
The AIG bonus episode pisses me off. But not for the reason it ticks off most other people. Yes, it's outrageous that the shmoes who drove AIG off a cliff are getting a bundle of cash. But what really bothers...

Open Access Factories

Posted on March 16, 2009
This semester, I have been teaching a seminar simply called "Bailouts." This week, we have been talking about the automobile industry. One of my students, Aaron Moshiashwili, put forth an interesting idea in his written work for the week. In...

Our House in the Middle of Our Street is no Longer Our House

Posted on March 16, 2009
Here?s a news flash: The housing market is bad. Actually, it is really bad, historically, woefully bad. And, the bad news won?t stop coming. Housing wealth is dropping precipitously, families own ever smaller shares of their own homes, and home...

Gone in 1.8 Seconds

Posted on March 15, 2009
A trillion here, a trillion there and all of a sudden you are talking real money. We are getting used to the ?T? word. Over the past year and half ? from the middle of 2007 through the end of...

Christian Weller Again to Lend His Expertise

Posted on March 15, 2009
Professor Christian Weller, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and professor of public policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston, has again kindly agreed to lend his time and expertise with Credit Slips readers. As an economist,...

Party Time in the Netherlands?

Posted on March 13, 2009
A comment from the Netherlands reminded me to post about an intriguing statistic I've been exploring. While consumer insolvency filing rates have been up around the world this past year (at least in the last quarter of 2008, as mentioned...

A Vignette from Champaign

Posted on March 12, 2009
Driving down one of our main thoroughfares yesterday, I drove past one of our local banks that was advertising its CD rates on the electronic sign out front. OK, nothing usual there. What was unusual was the line that appeared...

Cognitive Dissonance About BAPCPA

Posted on March 12, 2009
I don't know why I continue to be surprised by the statements about BAPCPA made by the now-infamous Prof. Zywicki, but like a moth to a flame, I keep reading them with utter amazement. Yesterday's hearing before the House Judiciary...

Hoping for Failure!?

Posted on March 11, 2009
As if negotiating a confirmable reorganization plan weren't difficult enough already, apparently credit default swaps (CDS) are making it even more difficult. The March 7th issue of the Economist has a great sidebar article, aptly entitled "Burning down the house...

Shared Suffering in Airports and in Bankruptcy

Posted on March 11, 2009
Warning: this is one of my odder posts. Today I got a postcard in the mail encouraging me to sign up for Flyclear, a private service that for a mere $174 annual membership will provide me with a special ID...

Great New Reading on Mortgage Modification

Posted on March 11, 2009
It's not all just fun and games with old credit cards at Katie Porter's house! She and a couple of co-authors have a great new paper on SSRN describing the history of the anti-modification provision for principal residence mortgages, an...

National Banks in Real Estate Brokerage

Posted on March 11, 2009
It appears that Congress is going to permanently ban national banks from engaging in real estate brokerage. This is a major win for the National Association of Realtors, who worry that if banks get in the brokerage business, they will...

Interchange is No Laughing Matter

Posted on March 11, 2009
The Merchants Payments Coalition, a merchant alliance that is pushing for reform of the credit card interchange fee system, has a nifty little cartoon out in Roll Call and the Washington Times. So a few words of explanation. Interchange is...

We're in the Money!(?)

Posted on March 10, 2009
Here in the U.S., lawyers in other areas must be eyeing their bankruptcy counterparts with envy, as our sector enjoys (if we can use that word without multi-directional guilt!) rapid growth while others areas are contracting. In England, this U.S.-bankruptcy-lawyer...

A Second Life for Old Cards

Posted on March 10, 2009
Credit Slips has an internal policy of not posting about anything other than debt or credit. No movie reviews, no divulging secret recipes, no waning on fabulous vacation to Nebraska. But I am nothing if not resourceful in circumventing policies,...

Anticipating Refund Anticipation Loans

Posted on March 07, 2009
I've clearly become predictable in my posts, as someone recently wrote to me wondering where is my annual tax-time rant against refund anticipation loans (RALs). In fact, I have written about them twice before on Credit Slips, here and here....

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