Payday lenders flout new laws across the country

WASHINGTON– As states from New Mexico to Illinois passed payday loan reform laws over the past few years, the movement to curb customer-gouging short-term high-interest loans seemed to be gaining steam and growing teeth. Ohio and Arizona voters even took to the polls to approve rate caps on payday lenders, regardless of threats that the industry would fold if it had to reduce rates from as high as 400 percent to 36 percent or less.

Finger pointing begins as move to stem foreclosures fails

WASHINGTON– Only a year ago, hopes were high that a big push by the government to stop foreclosures would be a great success, living up to its billing as “Help for America’s Homeowners.”

Last January started out with a foreclosure moratorium, allowing time for the Obama Administration to put the final touches on Making Home Affordable — its $75 billion signature program aimed at helping 3 to 4 million homeowners. After bailing out banks and the financial system, the administration turned its efforts to borrowers on the verge of losing their homes. The program rolled out with fanfare in the spring. But as 2010 begins, it is already clear that Making Home Affordable has fallen far short of its goals.

Deck the halls with loan papers: Foreclosure-crisis holiday jingles

Just in time for your holiday listening pleasure, two songs are making their way around the blogosphere, marking another year of falling home prices and an expanding commercial real estate bust. Cheers!

DC Scorecard: Bank lobbyists win again, with help from Dem friends

Bloomberg takes a hard look at the lobbying fight over financial regulatory overhaul and concludes that despite last week’s passage of a financial regulatory overhaul package by the House, the banks won — simply by not losing as…

Obama misses mark, scolds heedless bankers instead of New Dems

President Obama’s attempt to shame top bankers on Monday convinced no serious observers that lending will suddenly flow freely and financial institutions will quit lobbying to undermine regulatory reform. The fact that three of the nation’s top bankers literally phoned…

Financial industry reform battle begins again in Washington

As the Washington Independent noted on Wednesday, the U.S. House Financial Services Committee is in the midst of tackling financial regulatory reform, which has brought out the lobbyists in full force.

Here’s just a small taste of the…

Payday lenders prep to battle reform in Colorado

Stung by losses in states that either refused to authorize its high-rate, short-term loans or moved to limit finance charges, the payday lending industry isn’t giving up without a fight. Its lobbyists are pressing hard in states where it sees opportunity to stave off reform, including Colorado, site of a major coming battle, where lenders are already making financial contributions to minority groups to win favor.

Financial literacy coalition teams with subprime lender

The JumpStart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, a national nonprofit advocacy group that aims to improve the financial management skills of America’s youth, draws lots of attention for its surveys measuring how much kids really understand money. So why is one of its partners Atlanta-based CompuCredit, a usurious subprime lender that specializes in high-rate credit cards, payday loans, auto financing and debt collection, and which targets customers with poor credit scores?

Wells Fargo exec who partied in foreclosed beach house loses job

Well, at least one banking executive is personally feeling the pain of the foreclosure crisis: Wells Fargo has fired a top employee who moved into a foreclosed Malibu beach house and threw lavish parties all summer there, the Los Angeles…

American meltdown mortgage crisis, the movie

For many people, one of the confounding things about the financial crisis has been trying to grasp exactly what happened on Wall Street — and how things could have gotten so out of hand. The financial press, in many ways,…