Answers

Ok, nobody has asked me how to deal with banks and bad mortgages — and there is probably a good reason for that.  However, if you look at the title of this blog in small print below Consumer Law Updates it says — all the things no one has asked me about — yet.  Well, here are a few of those things.

If you want to seriously slow down the foreclosure problem, eliminate the statutory protections given only to residential mortgages in a Chapter 13.  If residential mortgages were freely modifiable in Chapter 13, lenders would take some principal hits but they would retain performing assets.

If you want to encourage banks to loan money to each other, make them priority creditors in the event of a bank dissolution.

If you want to reign in Corporate America’s addiction to outrageously high leverage rates, limit the deductibility of interest and other leverage related costs to a certain percentage of capital.

A whole lot cheaper than the bailout Secretary Paulson is proposing, and it just might work.

This blog will now return to the regular ramblings of an overeducated, consumer debtor’s attorney who swims in way too small a pond.

Elaine

Understanding the New Financial News

I have tried not to spend all summer blogging on financial happenings involving mortgage-backed securities. The net result of that, of course, is that I spent the summer not blogging.

Anyway, if you have been watching, or reading, the news and getting confused by tranches, CDO’s, sub-prime messes, credit crunches, Countrywide or just what the FLIP is going on, read this. Salon.com has done an amazing job of explaining the impossibly dense in understandable language and in such a way, that even fear itself starts to make some sense.

Now, if you will excuse me, I smell a surge of Bankruptcy filings on the wind. . . .

Elaine

Health Insurance and BK

Really nice editorial today in the Buffalo News Opinion section, Health Insurance Coverage Can Fall Short.  In this election year when we consider issues like health insurance coverage, health care costs and consumer credit issues, we need to consider that they are all interconnected.

I will say that the numbers in this article don’t really match what I see in my practice.  Mine are more depressing.  I see far more people than this article indicates who have never had health insurance.  In most cases, their employers don’t offer it.  In some cases their employer offers it, but the employee’s share of the premium would be 40% or more of the employee’s gross income.

I don’t know the answers.  If there were any easy answers, we wouldn’t have these problems.  What I do know is that tinkering with one part of the system won’t fix the big picture.

Elaine

Is Big Brother’s Name Google?

This blog now has a minimum age for readership.

You must be old enough to remember the phrase, “Careful, Big Brother is watching.”  Except now it should be, “Careful, Google is watching.”

I was just reading a Complaint and Request for Injunction that purports to have been filed with the FTC by EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center). Now, I read it on a web page. I have not checked with the FTC to make sure it is not an elaborate hoax, but this one would be elaborate.  Disclaimers now done.
According to this complaint Google really is collecting all of the information that passes through its hands. Oh, and its privacy policies may not be what you would want them to be. Ok, so why care now?  Privacy has been outdated for how long?   Well, because Google is trying to merge with the Internet ad power, Doubleclick. Then, Google will be able to use all the information it has been gathering:

• Email histories from Gmail;
• Histories of all search querries coupled with IP addresses;
• Indexes of computer desktops courtesy of Google desktop;
• All Instant Messages sent through Google Talk;
• RSS feed usage and histories through Google Reader;
• Details on your YouTube habit;
• All payment information obtained through Google checkout;
• Schedules on Google Calendar;
• Presumably documents from Google Applications;
• Your Orkut profile — including hobbies, friends, etc;
• All searches done with Google toolbar, identified with a special cookie to track web movement;
• and whatever else Google has planned for us.

All this to help it target Doubleclick marketing campaigns. If the special cookie in the Google toolbar gave you pause, the Doubleclick merger should get your attention. Doubleclick tracks your web progress as part of their marking business.

Anyone who thinks they can’t be identified by this kind of information missed the media storm when AOL mistakenly released some search data last summer. The AOL data did not include the kind of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) that Google stores, and people were still being identified by their search history. Now add in your IP address, email usage, billing histories and who knows what else — Google knows you.

Excuse me, I have to go delete my Google Toolbar.

Elaine

So, why didn’t I think of this?

I spent most of my undergraduate years as a member of a collegiate mock legislature. So, I know how to draft legislation. I went to law school and survived legal research and writing, so I should be able to figure out basic statutes and municipal regulations. I even have friends in politics. So, why didn’t I think about opening, “The Law Store”? Probably because I don’t live in Florida.

The Orlando Sentinel ran an article about a week ago on a guy in South Florida who has opened a store front, called The Law Store, where residents can, basically, custom-order laws and municipal regulations. The Law Store drafts them and then utilizes the procedures in virtually all municipal charters (and some State Constitutions) to get a measure on the ballot by some kind of referendum. You’ve got to love the title of the Orlando Sentinel’s article, Got a beef? Have a ‘McLaw’ made to order.

Democracy in action — and capitalism too.

Elaine

Why Pay for National CLE

Ok, so I have now forgotten twice to bring to the office the survey results I intended to blog about after getting my first full night’s sleep in a week. Instead, I am going to carry-on about why it pays to go to National CLE seminars.

I just got back from the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys’ national seminar in Philadelphia. Was it expensive? Yes. Was it a hassle to be out of the office and out of town from early Thursday morning until midnight Sunday night? You bet. Was it worth it? I can’t imagine practicing without this or something like it.

I’ve done countless CLE seminars locally. Generally, there will be one or two really good sections and the rest — um, less so. Look around the room after 3:00 sometime. The place is half empty. There is a reason the bar makes us sign in after lunch.

I used to think that out-of-state CLE was just an excuse for a tax deductible vacation, and I have seen brochures that fit that bill. I remember a Creditor’s Bankruptcy seminar several years ago that promised you could be on the ski slopes by 1:00 every day. At NACBA it is not at all uncommon for us to be in class or otherwise engaged with the seminar from 8:30 in the morning well into the evening.

Yesterday after my morning docket I had an attorney who practices some bankrutpcy ask me if I thought this kind of thing was worth the money. So, being a lawyer, I answered his question with a question — well, lots of them really.

There was another lawyer at the table who files more Bankruptcies than I do. Neither of them had any answers. Oh, and several of my questions were how to get creditors to pay debtor’s attorneys fee.

That is why it pays to go to National CLE.

If you do Bankruptcy work and are not a member of NACBA. Check it out
http://www.nacba.org

The brochure for Philadelphia is still up if you want to see what you missed.

Elaine

I’m Baaack — did you miss me?

Well, I have returned from the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys annual seminar in Philadelphia. The first words I heard coming off the airplane were from the airport speaker welcoming me to Oklahoma City and telling me that it was 12:00 a.m. Yep, that’s what you call first thing Monday morning. It was 1:00 by the time I was home, and I had a Status Conference at 9:45.

Oh, and my brain exploded about 2:00 on Saturday. If you have never been to an NACBA seminar and you do any bankruptcy work — you have to go. Just be prepared for overload.

I’ll be back tonight or tomorrow with some points of interest (at least to me) in NACBA’s recent survey of attorneys about Debtor Audits coming out of BAPCPA.

Until then — I need a nap.

Elaine

Newsflash — Lawyers Need Lives

Between 7:00 p.m. and midnight on Friday night — 10 people visited this blog.   Oh, and I know this, because I checked.

It is official.  We need lives.

Elaine

Why am I doing this?

It seems like every time somebody asks me one of those really volatile questions like, “So, what do you do for a living?” I spend the next thirty minutes on a soapbox.

The end of last week it was the effect of a new IRS regulation on people who manage to not file for bankruptcy. Earlier in the week it was universal default clauses and credit card companies’ testimony before Congress. In the not too distant past it has been attorneys who file collection cases without having ever seen a copy of the note. People who use debit cards without a clue what their liability is if something goes wrong. The securitization of consumer debt (primarily mortgages) and resale of that debt. You name it, and I can preach about it. So, maybe I ought to blog about it.

Check back soon for who knows what will set me going.

Elaine Dowling

www.dowlinglawoffice.com