Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 11 of 11
Full-Text Articles in Law
Ability To Pay, John A. E. Pottow
Ability To Pay, John A. E. Pottow
Articles
The landmark Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 ("Dodd-Frank") transforms the regulation of consumer credit in the United States. Many of its changes have been high-profile, attracting considerable media and scholarly attention, most notably the establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ("CFPB"). Even specific consumer reforms, such as a so-called "plain vanilla" proposal, drew hot debate and lobbying firepower. But when the dust settled, one profoundly transformative innovation that did not garner the same outrage as plain vanilla or the CFPB did get into the law: imposing upon lenders a duty to assure a borrower's ability to repay. Ensuring a borrower's …
Government Involvement In Chrysler Bankruptcy: The Least-Worst Alternative?, John A. E. Pottow
Government Involvement In Chrysler Bankruptcy: The Least-Worst Alternative?, John A. E. Pottow
Articles
As usual, my colleague Jim White has hit many nails on many heads. Also as usual, however, I’m going to be a pain and part ways with him a bit. First, was Chrysler’s bankruptcy “suspicious” in its use of section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code? You bet. Leaving aside the proliferation of 363 sales to swallow Chapter 11 as we once knew it, Chrysler was out in left field. Not only was it a “sale” of everything meaningful in the company, it was to a seller—Fiat—that put in no money. (To be fair, Fiat agreed to contribute technological know-how on …
Deleveraging Microfinance: Principles For Managing Voluntary Debt Workouts Of Microfinance Institutions, Deborah Burand
Deleveraging Microfinance: Principles For Managing Voluntary Debt Workouts Of Microfinance Institutions, Deborah Burand
Articles
This paper focuses on the challenges of responding to a deleveraging of the microfinance sector and offers guidelines for stakeholders in microfinance-regulators, policymakers, investors (debt and equity), donors, and microfinance providers-for how to address these challenges in the context of a microfinance institution debt workout so as to minimize undue disruption and damage to the microfinance sector as a whole.
Private Liability For Reckless Consumer Lending, John A. E. Pottow
Private Liability For Reckless Consumer Lending, John A. E. Pottow
Articles
Congress recently enacted amendments to the Bankruptcy Code that possess the overarching theme of cracking down on debtors due to the increasing rate at which individuals have been filing for bankruptcy. Taking into account the correlation between the overall rise in consumer credit card debt and the rate of individual bankruptcy filings, the author nevertheless hypothesizes that not all credit card debt is troubling. Instead, the author proposes that the catalyst driving individual bankruptcy rates higher than ever is the level of "bad credit"-or credit extended to individuals even though there is a reasonable likelihood that the individual will be …
Nsf Fees, James J. White
Nsf Fees, James J. White
Articles
Overdraft fees now make up more than half of banks' earnings on consumer checking accounts. In the past century, overdrafts have gone from the banker's scourge to the banker's profit center as bankers have learned that there is much to be made on these short term loans at breathtaking interest rates. I note that the federal agencies have been complicit in the growth of this form of lending. I propose that the banks and the agencies recognize the reality and attempt to mitigate these rates by encouraging the development of a competitive market.
The Nondischargeability Of Student Loans In Personal Bankruptcy Proceedings: The Search For A Theory, John A. E. Pottow
The Nondischargeability Of Student Loans In Personal Bankruptcy Proceedings: The Search For A Theory, John A. E. Pottow
Articles
In fiscal year 2002, approximately 5.8 million Americans borrowed $38 billion (USD) in federal student loans. This was more than triple the $11.7 billion borrowed in 1990. As a rule of thumb, tuition has been increasing at roughly double the rate of inflation in recent years. This troubling trend of accelerating tuition, coupled with the fact that real income has stagnated for men and increased only modestly for women over the past two decades, means that more and more students are going to need to turn to borrowed money to finance their degrees absent a radical restructuring of the postsecondary …
The Usury Trompe L'Oeil, James J. White
The Usury Trompe L'Oeil, James J. White
Articles
This Article demonstrates how the interaction of a federal statute passed in 1864,1 a case decided by the Supreme Court in 1978,2 and modem technology has legally debarred every state legislature from controlling consumer interest rates in its state-but not from passing laws that appear to do so-and has politically debarred the Congress from setting federal rates to replace the state rates. As a consequence, the elaborate usury laws on the books of most states are only a trompe l'oeil, a "visual deception... rendered in extremely fine detail ... ." The presence of these finely detailed laws gives the illusion …
Accelerated Depreciation—Tax Expenditure Or Proper Allowance For Measuring Net Income?, Douglas A. Kahn
Accelerated Depreciation—Tax Expenditure Or Proper Allowance For Measuring Net Income?, Douglas A. Kahn
Articles
Since the 1950s, it has become fashionable to attack various provisions of the Internal Revenue Code by calling them "subsidies" rather than "proper" means of measuring taxable income. These "subsidies" through Code provisions have come to be referred to as "tax expenditures," a term coined by Professor Stanley Surrey in a speech he made as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Policy on November 15, 1967. In that speech, Professor Surrey stated that our tax system often deliberately departs "from accepted concepts of net income," so that by granting exemptions, deductions, and credits that are not appropriate to an …
Consumer Sensitivity To Interest Rates: An Empirical Study Of New Car Buyers And Auto Loans, James J. White, Frank W. Munger Jr.
Consumer Sensitivity To Interest Rates: An Empirical Study Of New Car Buyers And Auto Loans, James J. White, Frank W. Munger Jr.
Articles
ALTHOUGH it has never been clear whether the consumer needs to be protected from his own folly or from the rapaciousness of those who feed on him, consumer protection is a topic of intense current interest in the courts, in the legislatures, and in the law schools. A number of recent court decisions have attempted to attack problems confronting the consumer; unfortunately, these judicial efforts have succeeded primarily in disclosing the limitations in the courts' ability to deal with such problems. State and federal legislative bodies have pursued more carefully designed remedies. Congress has passed the Truth-in-Lending Act; the National …
Financial Details, Kent Memorial, Edwin C. Goddard
Financial Details, Kent Memorial, Edwin C. Goddard
Articles
The following is a statement, with such details as I should think would answer the purposes of other chapters, of the ways and means adopted for securing the present building just completed at Ann Arbor.
Marshaling Of Mortgaged Property In Favor Of Subsequent Mortgagees, Edgar N. Durfee
Marshaling Of Mortgaged Property In Favor Of Subsequent Mortgagees, Edgar N. Durfee
Articles
A holds a first mortgage covering two parcels of land, B holds a second mortgage covering one of these parcels, and C holds a second mortgage covering the other parcel, B's mortgage being prior in time to C's. B's mortgage contains the following clause--"The property described in the within indenture is subject to an existing blanket mortgage held by A, with release clause of $10 per front foot." Upon a bill to foreclose A's mortgage, how should the burden of that mortgage be distributed? In Savings Investment & Trust Co. v. United Realty & Mortgage Co., 94 Atl. 588, the …