barney-frank

—>AIG CEO Edward Liddy told the House Financial Services subcommittee this afternoon that he has asked the members of the Financial Products division to voluntarily return half of their bonuses.  More »

AIG Hearing If you'd like to watch the House Financial Services Subcommittee's hearing on AIG, it's available at CSPAN. [CSPAN 3]  More »

—>New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has written a letter to House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, offering some advice on what topics they might discuss at tomorrow's AIG hearing. Among them: Giving "retention" bonuses to people who have left the company, making 73 millionaires in "the unit which lost so much money that it brought the firm to its knees" and the fact that without a taxpayer bailout — the "best and brightest" at AIG wouldn't have jobs from which to collect impressive guaranteed bonuses.  More »

—>New York Attorney General and House Financial Services Committee Chair Barney Frank have written a letter to Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis demanding the names of the nearly 700 executives who received bonuses in excess of one million dollars.  More »

—>Apparently the answer to that question is "yes." CNN is reporting that several states have outsourced bounced check collections to a company that will track you down — even for minor accidental bounced checks — and make you take their personal finance class. By the way, the class costs $160.  More »

—>New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo wrote a letter yesterday to Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), head of the House Financial Services Committee, (which is currently holding hearings Washington on how banks are spending bailout funds.) In the letter, Cuomo expresses concern that Merrill Lynch moved up their bonus schedule so that they could make sure that taxpayers would get the bill.  More »

—>"Hey, guys? Where did that 2 trillion dollars go?" asks Bloomberg. The answer? We'd tell you, but it would be bad for you.   More »

—>The House this week voted 291-127 to pass the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act, Congress' first major attempt to prevent a recurrence of the ongoing subprime meltdown. The bill, supported by every Democrat and 64 Republicans, stabs at the heart of the meltdown by:

• Establishing a national licensing and registration system for mortgage lenders;
• Establishing the Office of Housing Counseling within HUD to help borrowers avoid foreclosure;
• Banning loans that a borrower cannot reasonably repay;
• Banning lenders from steering borrowers towards loans with predatory characteristics;
• Making banks that securitize mortgages liable for violating lending laws.

—>Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley last week unveiled aggressive regulations designed to curb the orgy of irresponsible lending that led to the subprime meltdown. The measures, among the strictest in the nation, enjoin lenders from profiteering or ignoring a prospective borrower's financial situation.  More »

—>The House Financial Services Committee wants to know why it is so difficult to dispute inaccurate information on your credit report. You can watch the hearing live thanks to a webcam connected to the tubes.

The hearing will examine factors that continue to contribute to inaccurate consumer credit reports and evaluate the adequacy of the consumer dispute process under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). In addition, the Committee will hear recommendations for improving the process and efforts that furnishers, credit bureaus and the regulators are taking to improve the accuracy of credit report information and will review the status of key rule makings and studies mandated by the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACTA) related to the accuracy of information furnished to consumer reporting agencies and the adequacy of the dispute resolution process.