One of the sticking points in enacting the financial reform bill stuck in the Senate is the creation of a new consumer financial protection agency, which Republicans have ardently opposed.

This post from the financial sector policy blog Finance: Facts and Follies summarizes the dismantling of consumer protections in the mortgage and credit card industries in the 2000s.

Many of the steps violating unsophisticated consumers’ protections against predatory lending came from a cascade of federal, not state, regulatory actions and legislation.

Tip o’ the hat to Laura at EconomyStory for sending us Sub-prime the Musical. The site consists of a series of podcasts by a college student named Madison Koshy, who created them from research she did on the causes of the credit crisis. Naturally, she then wrote song parodies to illustrate the concepts she had [...]

The prolonged recession has made the potential loss of a home a painful reality for millions of formerly comfortable owners. Today, the Mortgage Bankers Association released more unwelcome news on that front: A record-high 13% of mortgage holders are either behind on their payments or in foreclosure. That’s a scary number of people facing an [...]