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Dunning the Debt Collectors

New Orleans    The Federal Trade Commission stepped up to the play in behalf of citizens/consumers yesterday and finally put a boot on the butt of scumbag, lying debt collection operations with a $2.5 million fine levied on Asset Acceptance of Warren, Michigan.

The Times reported the following:

The company’s collectors also failed to inform consumers that paying [...]

Embracing Your Percentage

New Orleans  The Times ran a story that tried to put a face on the 1% and encourage us to embrace our inner percentage.

There are two ways to approach looking at these numbers around the country, and both perspectives can offer some insight to US political views.

On the one hand it lends some vague sense of [...]

Turning Up the Heat on FDI and Remittances

New Orleans   This report almost writes itself, especially since the pictures virtually tell the story as various organizations in the ACORN International global federation step up to turn on the heat.

Ottawa ACORN opens another year of our Remittance Justice Campaign picketing Western Union for predatory pricing of transfers from working, immigrant families back to their [...]

Despite Suze Orman’s Claim Prepaid Debit Cards Still No Good

New Orleans    Suze Orman has made her reputation as a TV financial advisor.  Now she wants to promote a debit card for low-and-moderate income families who have weak credit and want the ability to operate differently.  Her Approved card needs to be renamed as the Improved card, but it’s still not a good card, or [...]

Stuck in Place: Who is Surprised at the Lack of Mobility?

New Orleans    The lack of social mobility has finally gotten so bad that it seems even Republicans have noticed it.  Horatio Alger and the “rags to riches” trajectory of the American dream are dead.  The new narrative is best expressed as “rags to rags, and riches to riches.”

            According to a Jason DeParle piece in [...]

Toil Index and Tax Credits for Home Ownership

Robert Schiller from Yale gave props to Richard Green of USC for his recommendation that there be a targeted tax credit to encourage homeownership.  Green and Andrew Reschovsky of Wisconsin have studied the data closely are clear that the real benefit of existing tax policy allowing a standard deduction for interest on mortgages is for [...]

Celebrating Wage Increases and Asking Santa for More in the Future

            New Orleans               ACORN was a great organization and some of the gifts from its membership to their neighbors and co-workers keep on giving, despite the fact that the organization shut its doors 13 months ago in the United States.

No better example can be found in the automatic increases in [...]

Near Poor: Trouble at the Dividing Line of Poverty

New Orleans                       Nothing like stumbling over the obvious, but then the whole point of being relatively poor or “near poor,” as the Times called it today, is being invisible, no matter what they or anyone else may want to call it.  In looking at the new numbers that try to define the terror and [...]

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