Archive for December, 2007

The StarTribune has a nice article about the difficulties of being poor in the suburbs. A number of Minnesota legislators took a tour of some of the support services facilities in the suburbs and met with some of the people in poverty. While the article is a little light (see Nickel and Dimed: On [...]

It appears that late last year several of the companies that packaged up the securitized mortgages started to divest themselves of the securities. Apparently Goldman Sachs started divesting late last year but continued to sell $6 billion worth of subprime mortgage securities.
Apparently their clients interest don’t always come first.

While it is good news that the government will not bail out lenders, President Bush’s announcement today of his plan to deal with subprime loans. As it turns out, the plan is pretty limited. The only borrowers who will be able to take advantage are those whose adjustable-rate mortgage has not yet adjusted. The plan [...]

Americans for Fairness in Lending just released a tip sheet for holiday shoppers. The holidays are huge for retailers, which means they can be catastrophic for consumers.
My number one tip: set a budget for holiday spending and stick to it. If you can do that, you won’t have to worry about credit at all.

It’s December, [...]

Sentry Credit is not only “vigilant about your business,” the company’s website features a combat soldier, and its logo is a soldier slashing with a sword. Sentry promises that “Whatever percentage recovery you get today, we’ll get you more.”
Apparently by sending the militia.

Where has the Fed been? This is a good example of why federal preemption of banking regulation or any regulation is such a bad idea.
We have a national problem causing havoc across America and we have to wait for Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo of New York subpoenaed major Wall Street firms including Merrill Lynch, [...]

With the Bush Administration working on a plan to assist subprime borrowers who are facing trouble, there has been a lot of discussion about the merits of the idea. Certainly one thing that we need to watch is who gets rescued. The details leaked so far indicate that the relief will only go to homeowners [...]

The debt collection industry is booming. Unifund, one of the big U.S. debt buyers, files nearly 5,500 lawsuits a year in California. In Minnesota, where pocket filing makes the cost of obtaining a default judgment negligible, I would expect to see similar, if not greater, per capita figures. And, of course, it is not just [...]

I have a loan through Prosper.com, a “social lending” site that allows regular folks to pool their money to fund loans to other regular folks. My loan was small and I took it out in the early days of Prosper.com, before it was so difficult to get a good interest rate there.
As far as I [...]

SmartMoney.com has a good collection of common-sense advice to maximize your chances of getting out of a traffic ticket. No promises, just good advice that may help.