The Arbitration War
Unexpected wireless charges are a chronic affliction of life on the grid. The industry triggers more complaints from consumers than any other. AT&T Mobility, by consumer rankings, is the worst. Its performance in a case the Supreme Court heard recently has done nothing to improve that reputation...The Ninth Circuit said this “artifice” has “the practical effect of rendering” AT&T “immune from individual claims.” AT&T’s arbitration clause is unconscionable. The Supreme Court should say so.

Jury Convicts Tom DeLay for Money Laundering
Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, once one of the most powerful and feared Republicans in Congress, was convicted Wednesday on charges he illegally funneled corporate money to Texas candidates in 2002. Jurors deliberated for 19 hours before returning guilty verdicts against DeLay on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He faces up to life in prison on the money laundering charge.

Feds used wire to find buried loot from Bill Erpenbeck case
Federal agents began focusing on Skidmore as they searched for the assets of Bill Erpenbeck, who was ordered to forfeit $34 million as part of his 2003 conviction for stealing millions of dollars from banks and home buyers. Skidmore told FBI agents as early as July 2002 and again in March 2003 that he didn't know where any of the money was hidden. Skidmore then appears to have dropped off agents' radar until the summer 2009. See: ERPENBECK ENQUIRER STORY ARCHIVE

Segregation: The Invisible Elephant in the Foreclosure Debate
The foreclosure mess just will not go away. Neither will incomplete if not misleading explanations for the crisis, or partial if not ineffective policy proposals. More than 10 million families will lose their homes to foreclosure before the housing market "clears" according to Credit Suisse. Meanwhile, as with the subprime and predatory lending bubbles that led directly to the present crisis, fingers are pointed in several directions as all parties to the debate try to shift blame to their favorite individual and institutional targets. Lost in this discussion is how continuing racial segregation has fueled these developments.  Read More on Study: Princeton study finds racial dimensions to foreclosure crisis See: Summary

Princeton study: Institutional racism played role in foreclosure crisis
African-Americans were more likely to be offered subprime loans over whites who had similar financial backgrounds, according to a new study that looks at institutional racism in the nation's housing crisis.“While policy makers understand that the housing crisis affected minorities much more than others, they are quick to attribute this outcome to the personal failures of those losing their homes — poor credit and weaker economic position,” noted Douglas Massey, the study's other author and a professor at Woodrow Wilson. “In fact, something more profound was taking place; institutional racism played a big part in this crisis.”  Read More on Study: Princeton study finds racial dimensions to foreclosure crisis See: Summary

Congressional hearing on foreclosures: When did feds learn of problems?
Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), who is likely to be tapped as the next chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, grilled federal regulators about when they learned of the "robo-signing" and other issues related to foreclosures.  Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R -Tex.) also criticized the regulators, calling it frustrating to have "the people we put in charge" come before Congress again as they did during the financial crisis and say, "We didn't know."   "The American people have a greater expectation that you know it before it happens than reacting after it happens," Neugebauer said.

NYC Uses 'Sting' House to Nab Unlicensed Home Contractors
Today the city of New York is announcing the results of an undercover sting operation that targeted illegal contractors. The majority of states require home improvement contractors to be properly licensed, but there are still plenty of rogue companies operating. That's why authorities in New York and elsewhere are getting tough with illegal, unlicensed contractors...inspectors eventually nab a dozen companies and issue $65,000 in fines...Even more powerful, they impound their vehicles. Because you can't do any deals if you don't have wheels.

Justices Question Contracts That Block Class Actions
The Supreme Court seemed disinclined to let companies use legal fine print to block class actions, with several justices suggesting they might defer to state courts that ruled in favor of consumers. An AT&T Inc. unit tried to prohibit class actions with arbitration clauses in the contracts it imposes on mobile-phone customers. But courts in California ruled the provision unenforceable..."scheme to deliberately cheat large numbers of consumers out of individually small sums of money," a clause prohibiting class actions was unconscionable because it left consumers with no practical remedy

The Case Against Homeownership
Homeownership has let us down. For generations, Americans believed that owning a home was an axiomatic good. Our political leaders hammered home the point. Herbert Hoover argued that homeownership could "change the very physical, mental and moral fiber of one's own children." Franklin Roosevelt held that a country of homeowners was "unconquerable." Homeownership could even, in the words of George H.W. Bush's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Jack Kemp, "save babies, save children, save families and save America." A house with a front lawn and a picket fence wasn't just a nice place to live or a risk-free investment; it was a way to transform a nation.

He Saw Trouble Coming. Now He Sees It Going
Ian Shepherdson chief United States economist at High Frequency Economics. As a reader of economic tea leaves over the last five turbulent years, Mr. Shepherdson has a darn good record. For instance, unlike the throng of economists who failed to see the housing crisis coming, Mr. Shepherdson warned his clients in fall 2005 that real estate would crash and a recession would ensue...One problem for economists and investors, he said, is that our current economic cycle does not have the typical recession-recovery characteristics or timeline. Those who thought it would be similar to recent recessions were trying to fit a square peg into a round hole; there was nothing normal or routine about the events we have just lived through.

Experts share solutions to solving the foreclosure mess
The federal government just reported that 4.2 million homeowners are "seriously delinquent" on their mortgages and some 10.9 million borrowers are underwater, meaning their loans exceed the value of their homes.  To make matters worse, there is the threat of protracted litigation between banks and borrowers because lenders might not have followed the letter of law in processing foreclosure paperwork.  An even bigger source of worry is the $426 billion in so-called second liens — home equity loans, second mortgages and other loans "junior" to the primary mortgage — that sit on the balance sheets of Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup...  Add it all up and there's the potential for the U.S. housing market to languish in a stupor for years to come. As bleak as all that might sound, there could be a way out — one that doesn't involve another government bailout.

Lowe’s Amends Settlement to Get Drywall Victims More Money
Lowe's Companies Inc. has dramatically increased the amount of money  [1] it is prepared to offer customers whose health or homes were harmed by defective drywall they bought from its stores. Those customers are now eligible for up to $100,000 in cash, instead of the maximum $4,500 in cash and gift cards that was previously agreed upon in a class action lawsuit that is being negotiated in a Georgia state court.

Should Obama Halt Foreclosures?
As the American economic malaise moves into its third year, the plague of home foreclosures continues to spread. It’s hardly news that people are still losing their houses, unable to keep up with payments because of job losses or bad decisions on loans that should never have been made. What is alarming, though, is that another wave of foreclosures is headed toward America’s suburbs, threatening further injury to the housing market. In the next three years, there are likely to be 3 million more homes seized, according to RealtyTrac, a real-estate-research firm. That would be as many as were seized from 2008 through today, a period that included the worst of the recession. In September alone there were more than 100,000 foreclosures, the most since RealtyTrac began following the numbers in 2005.