Not only did Capital One ignore the demand, under Pennsylvania’s version of the FDCPA, that all future communications be with Perry’s lawyer, continuing to make phone calls to her home, her office, and even some of her friends and relatives, but it kept arbitrarily changing the alleged amount due. Finally, Perry received a letter demanding payment of $286,651,237.00.
A debt collection agency used phony hearings in a room decorated to look like a courtroom to collect money from unsuspecting consumers, according to a lawsuit filed Friday against the company by Pennsylvania.
On Thursday, when they spoke, the bank executive was sweetness and light—she told them that Ilsa and Brian qualified for HAMP, that they would get refinanced, that they would not have to pay the difference in mortgage of the last three months—“Your lower mortgage rate is locked in!”
And as to the $84 penalty fee, which had driven Brian in particular up the wall: It was waived.
Ilsa told me, “It was the nicest conversation we’ve ever had with a bank executive.”
The executive promised to have the papers drawn up, ready to be signed before November 1.
That’s right: November first. After dicking them around for months on end, Wells Fargo all of a sudden went from turtle-speed to light-speed—to warp-speed—boom!—just like that. They didn’t even engage thrusters, Captain—it was warp drive the instant Brian e-mailed that threat.
Wealth concentration. Pay attention. This will become the new metric.
Kapur told clients in 2005 that the United States and a handful of other economies were developing into “plutonomies” where the wealthy few powered economic growth and consumed much of its bounty, while the “multitudinous many” shared the leftovers.
Plutonomies come around only once or twice a century, he argued — 16th century Spain, 17th century Holland, the Gilded Age. The last time it happened in the United States was during the “Roaring 1920s”.
There was money to be made by buying shares of luxury companies that made toys for the rich, he told clients, suggesting a basket of stocks that included upscale retailer Burberry and luxury home builder Toll Brothers.
“When I presented this to clients, they said, ‘Okay, this is interesting because you’re telling me what happened in the 1920s is happening right now, and you obviously know what happened after 1929, right?’,” Kapur said in an interview.
His response? That can’t happen again because we know better now.
“To be perfectly honest…. I certainly didn’t think it would all melt down in 2007. I’d be lying if I said that.”
HR 5297 passed the Senate last week. It will rush through the house and likely be signed into law by President Obama as early as Friday of this week. This bill will have a huge impact on business. Here, courtesy of Jack Kykendahl and Tom Yuhas is a quick run down of the bill: Continue reading “Small Business Bill HR 5297 | An Overview”→
Our friend and client, quoted in Bloomberg Businessweek:
Jim Heitman, an independent, fee-only financial adviser in Alta Loma, Calif., has seen a big jump in client interest in reverse mortgages in recent years. “When I introduce the topic, I need to do a lot less educating as to what that is than I used to,” he says.
Transparency, Accuracy, and the Small Business Dashboard
With small businesses creating two out of every three net new jobs, holding more patents than the largest corporations and universities combined, and employing half of all working Americans, we can’t afford to ignore opportunities to improve and advance federal contracting opportunities to small businesses.
Today President Obama’s Interagency Task Force on Federal Contracting Opportunities for Small Businesses put forward thirteen recommendations to:
Develop clearer and more comprehensive small business contracting policies;
Provide for a better workforce and hold agencies accountable for meeting small business goals; and
Leverage technology to enhance transparency, increase federal procurement accessibility for small businesses, and improve data quality.
Transparency, Accuracy, and the Small Business Dashboard
Small business contracting goals, started in 1978, help agencies map out the percentage of annual prime contract spending that should be awarded to small businesses every year. The thirteen recommendations that the Interagency Task Force put forward today will address the gap between the annual government-wide goal for contracting and the actual annual prime contract spending. While the Department of Energy received an “A” grade for FY 2009 achievement from the Small Business Administration, we are fully committed to improving government-wide small business contracting.
The brand-new Small Business Dashboard is a reflection of this commitment. On the Small Business Dashboard visitors can see government-wide goaling information, design their own data feeds from small business data, perform detailed searches on government contractors, view top types of contracts used and states by vendor locations, and learn more about the contracts at each Federal agency.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization is looking forward to working with the Task Force as we implement the recommendations put forward today and evaluate progress. We hope resources like the Small Business Dashboard prove useful to your small business, and we welcome the opportunity to continue talking with you.
I did something I doubt few people have dared. I took the liberty of a 13-hour flight back from Asia earlier this week to read all 2,300-plus pages of the bill. Yes, all of them.
My law professor verdict: There are many things to applaud in this bill and much in there that will substantially enhance the government’s power to regulate the financial industry. On the whole, if you think that the financial industry needs more supervision and financial regulators more tools, you should be relatively happy. If you are an advocate of big world changing ideas like breaking up the banks, you will be less so.
Wealth concentration. Pay attention. This will become the new metric.
I did something I doubt few people have dared. I took the liberty of a 13-hour flight back from Asia earlier this week to read all 2,300-plus pages of the bill. Yes, all of them.
Dispatches From The Front 