Is the NRA Out of Bullets?

The NRA's Gone to Texas bankruptcy just keeps getting wilder and wilder. First an NRA board member files a motion for an examiner. Then the NRA's largest creditor files a motion for the case to be dismissed as a bad faith filing (or in the alternative seeking a trustee). Then the NYAG also  files a motion seeking the dismissal of the case as a bad faith filing or in the alternative requesting a trustee be appointed. And then to top it off, the US Trustee files an objection to the retention of the NRA's counsel as not disinterested only to have one of the NRA's largest trade creditors file a motion for the Official Creditors' Committee set up by the US Trustee to be reconstituted (and basically alleging bias by the US Trustee's office against NRA management). This is turning in the bankruptcy version of the shoot out at the OK Corral. 

Is the NRA Board Shooting Itself in the Foot By Doing Nothing?

In my previous blog post on the NRA bankruptcy, I was focused on the bankruptcy implications of the incredible examiner motion filed by an NRA board member against the NRA. But as I think about it more, it's also got some important corporate governance implications: did the NRA board violate its fiduciary duties?  

NRA Examiner Motion

As I predicted, things were not going to go so smoothly for the National Rifle Association in bankruptcy. Today, the Hon. Phillip Journey, a Kansas state judge who was recently elected to the NRA's board of directors, filed an examiner motion in the case. There are some bombshells in Judge Journey's motion, including that the NRA board was never informed of the bankruptcy filing or the creation of the venue-hook subsidiary! 

That cause me to go back and look at the NRA's bankruptcy petition. There's no board authorization of the filing attached! Instead, there's an authorization by the NRA's special litigation committee. The special litigation committee's purported authority to file the NRA for bankruptcy is language in its enabling resolution about undertaking actions to "reorganize or restructure the affairs of the Association". Is that a grant of authority for a chapter 11 filing? I'm skeptical. I would have expected express language about filing "for bankruptcy under title 11 of the United States Code" or the like. "Reorganize or restructure the affairs" could include a lot of things other than bankruptcy, and given the importance of bankruptcy for corporate governance, this doesn't seem like the sort of power to be given by implication. 

Eviction Moratoria Save Lives: the Evidence

Once in a while you see an empirical paper that makes you say "wow." That's my first reaction to an NBER paper out from some economists and a sociologist at Duke and UNC. The paper, entitled "Housing Precarity & the Covid-19 Pandemic: Impacts of Utility Disconnection and Eviction Moratoria on Infections and Deaths Across US Counties" has an absolute bombshell finding:  eviction and utility disconnect moratoria save lives.  A lot of them.  

The paper suggests that had eviction and disconnect moratoria been in place since the start of the pandemic, deaths would be down by over 55!!!! That's 246,000 deaths that shouldn't have happened. From the abstract: 

We find that policies that limit evictions are found to reduce COVID-19 infections by 3.8% and reduce deaths by 11%. Moratoria on utility disconnections reduce COVID-19 infections by 4.4% and mortality rates by 7.4%. Had such policies been in place across all counties (i.e., adopted as federal policy) from early March 2020 through the end of November 2020, our estimated counterfactuals show that policies that limit evictions could have reduced COVID-19 infections by 14.2% and deaths by 40.7%. For moratoria on utility disconnections, COVID-19 infections rates could have been reduced by 8.7% and deaths by 14.8%.

Here's the key graphic: 

The methodology is a regression analysis on COVID infection/death rates and a county-level housing insecurity measure—that means that the paper is not connecting actual deaths and actual evictions. And one might question if the controls adequate capture everything. People more methodologically expert than me need to kick the tires here. But at a first glance, the directional findings here are very strong (over 99% chance of a correlation in all of the key specifications and models) and the point estimates are huge. Even if the findings are off by a factor of 100, we're talking about 2,460 unnecessary deaths, a staggering number from a pre-COVID perspective (close to the 9/11 direct death toll). If the paper is right, the CDC's eviction moratorium might have done more to save lives than any other single action taken during the pandemic. 

This paper should be a real spur for states to tighten up their renter protections and utility disconnect regulations during the pandemic. It should also be a call for the CDC to not only extend its eviction moratorium at least until the fall, but to expand it to cover utility disconnects and mobile home repossessions. 

NRA Bankruptcy

The National Rifle Association filed for bankruptcy in the Northern District of Texas (Dallas). The NRA's press release says that the purpose of the bankruptcy is to enable the NRA to change from being a New York corporation to a Texas corporation. This is critical to the NRA because the NY Attorney General, who regulates NY non-profits, is seeking to have the NRA dissolved for financial malfeasance. Notably, the NRA states that it "will propose a plan that provides for payment in full of all valid creditors’ claims. The Association expects to uphold commitments to employees, vendors, members, and other community stakeholders." In other words, the NRA's petition is not driven by financial exigencies, but to avoid the reach of the New York Attorney General. As the press release boasts, the NRA is "dumping New York."

This is going to be one heck of an interesting case. There are already so many glaring issues (or should I say "targets"?): venue, good faith filing, disclosures, the automatic stay the trustee question, fiduciary duties to pursue claims against insiders, executory employment contracts, the fate of Wayne LaPierre, and the generally overlooked governance provisions of the Bankruptcy Code. I'll take quick aim at these all below. 

CBRA Op-Ed

I have an op-ed about the Consumer Bankruptcy Reform Act running on CNBC's site. Given that both collection moratoria and benefit extensions keep getting dribbled out in one to three month bites, we will definitely see an expiration of both as the pandemic wanes, and neither is sufficient for many households to address their arrearages.

Consider this (not in the op-ed): there's now 4.78% of mortgages that are 90+ delinquent. That's the third-highest level since 1978. Part of that is that there are virtually no foreclosures happening, but a lot of it is that the delinquencies aren't being cured. Once a household runs 90+ delinquent, cure gets very difficult—the arrearage is just too big. We are going to be looking at a lot of foreclosures down the road. Add to that a rental delinquency rate somewhere between 18% (Census numbers) and 23% (Nat'l Multifamily Housing Council numbers), and we've got a real mess looming. Unfortunately, it won't just be an economic problem or a personal tragedy for many families. It will be a political problem that will have long-term ramifications, just like the 2008 foreclosure crisis.  

Mick Mulvaney for Hypocrite Laureate?

Remember Mick Mulvaney?  He was a Tea Party Congressman who became head of OMB for Trump and was then named acting CFPB Director and ultimately acting Chief of Staff for Trump before being appointed special envoy to Northern Ireland.  Well he’s resigned in protest over the sacking of the Capitol. 

I'm glad to hear that Mick is opposed to mob violence. But Mick has always been a virutoso of hypocrisy, but here he’s outdone himself. Let's not forget that Mick Mulvaney personally did far worse damage to our country than all of the Trumpist rioters.

The Kraninger Discount

The CFPB has been chugging out enforcement actions and settlements at a fairly fast clip the last several months. Part of that might be businesses deciding to settle because they think they're going to get a better deal with Director Kraninger than under any Director appointed by President Biden. And here's the thing:  they might well be right because there is a clearly observable "Kraninger Discount" in CFPB enforcement statistics. Director Kraninger has suspended nearly 18% of civil monetary penalties and 11% of consumer redress. That's nearly 7x and 3x the rate penalty and redress suspensions under Director Cordray.

"Madden-Fix" Amicus

I filed an amicus brief today in Becerra v. Brooks, the challenge brought by the California, Illinois, and New York attorneys general against the OCC's "Madden-fix" rule. Consider it a stocking stuffer for the Acting Comptroller, Brian Brooks, and a bit of goodwill toward mankind. 

Many thanks to my able counsel, Ted Mermin and Eliza Duggan from the Berkeley Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice! 

The OCC Is a Problem Agency

It's time to say it loud and clear: the OCC is a problem agency.

Here's a list of only some of the issues from the past year: the fair access rule, toleration of rent-a-banks, the valid-when-made rule, the true lender rule (that the FDIC notably didn't copy), the fintech charter, Figure's bank charter application, failure to deal with BoA's fair housing issues; failure to take JPM's unauthorized overdrafts seriously, even a ridiculous interpretation of preemption standards that came out today. (Does this laundry list of problems remind anyone of the FHLBB or OTS?)  

Regulatory Comments to the OCC on the Fair Access to Financial Services Rule

I submitted comments to the OCC about its proposed rulemaking regarding Fair Access to Financial Services. I previously blogged on the topic here and here. There are a LOT of problems in this poorly thought-through rulemaking, starting with whether there is even statutory authority, continuing to its myriad inconsistencies with safety-and-soundness (and thank goodness for President Trump, who provides many helpful examples), going on to First Amendment problems, and then wrapping up with an antitrust analysis that would flunk any antitrust course—it doesn't even define a relevant product market! Sigh. 

The Unconvincing Case for a Public Credit Registry

Public provision—whether public options or public monopoly—has become all the rage in some progressive circles. I’d like to claim early mover status in this regard—back in 2009 I wrote a piece calling for public provision in payments, and in 2013 I wrote a piece underscoring the importance of public options and public provision in housing finance. One public provision proposal I haven’t previously commented on, but which has been troubling me for a while is the idea of a public credit registry. I’m sympathetic to consideration of public provision as a tool in the regulatory toolbox, and the idea is supported by a bunch of folks whom I very much respect, but I just don’t see the case here at all.  Public provision just isn’t a solution to most of the market failures in credit reporting. Moreover, even if there were a case, of all the possible priorities in consumer finance regulation, this seems really far down the list and a poor use of limited agency resources. 

The Consumer Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2020

Today Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and David Cicilline (D-RI) introduced the Consumer Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2020. This is the first major consumer bankruptcy reform legislation to be introduced since the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA). Whereas BAPCPA introduced a number of major, but targeted reforms to consumer bankruptcy law (and also a few business bankruptcy provisions as well), the CBRA is a much more ambitious bill:  it proposes a wholesale reform of the structure of consumer bankruptcy law with an eye toward reduces the costs and frictions that prevent consumers from being able to address their debts in bankruptcy.

This is a long post with an extended overview of the bill. The bill's sponsors have a one-page version or a two-page summary, but I figure you're here at the Slips because you just can't get enough bankruptcy law, and we're happy to oblige. Let me start with a disclosure, though. I was privileged to provide assistance with the bill, along with several other Slipsters. That means I know what's in it, and I think it's a really good and important piece of legislation that I hope will become law. 

A New Chapter 10 for Consumer Bankruptcy (Eliminating Consumer 7s and Chapter 13) 

Whereas consumer bankruptcy has long existed in two primary flavors—liquidations (chapter 7) and repayment plans (chapter 13)—the CBRA proposes a single chapter structure (a new chapter 10).  Under the CBRA, individual debtors would no longer be eligible for chapter 7, and chapter 13 would be repealed in its entirety. All individual debtors with debts of less than $7.5 million would be eligible for chapter 10; those with larger debts would have to file for 11 (or 12 if they qualify).  It's important to keep this structure in mind when evaluating the CBRA. While the CBRA takes elements from chapters 7 and 13, the CBRA is not trying to replicate existing 7 or 13. That means if you come to CBRA with a mindset of "wait, that's not how we do it in 13," well, yeah, that's kind of the point. 

The CBRA is a huge bill (188-pages) with a lot of provisions. In addition to the new chapter 10, it also contains amendments to numerous provisions in chapters 1, 3, and 5 of the Bankruptcy Code, as well to certain federal consumer financial protection statutes. I'm not going to try to cover everything in detail, but I want to cover how chapter 10 would work, as well as some of the highlights from other provisions. This is a very long post, but I think it's important for there to be a clear statement of how chapter 10 would work because there will undoubtedly be some misinterpretations of the bill, and I'd like to see consideration of the bill be on its actual merits.  

Restructuring Support Agreements and the "Proceduralist Inversion"

I'm usually fussing about bank regulation issues here on the Slips, but I do try to make time for my first love, business bankruptcy. Ted Janger and I have a short piece about restructuring support agreements out in the Yale Law Journal's on-line supplement. It's a response to David Skeel's excellent article about RSAs. Suffice it to say that we are a bit more skeptical that Skeel about the benefits of RSAs, which we see as a mixed bag that require some policing.

What's particularly fascinating to me and Ted, however, is the way that Skeel's article illustrates the way that "camps" of bankruptcy scholar have effectively swapped positions over time. The "bankruptcy conservatives"—law-and-economics camp—was historically associated with a concern about procedure over outcomes and criticized the "bankruptcy liberals"—the traditionalist camp—as too concerned about distributional outcomes. Yet now it is bankruptcy liberals who are urging adherence to procedural protections, while it is the bankruptcy conservatives who are cheering on procedurally suspect devices because of their effects. 

Figure's National Banking Charter Application: Illegal and Bad Policy

It's not every day that I write a letter in opposition to the issuance of a bank charter. But that's what I just did. Here is my comment letter to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in opposition to the charter application for Figure, which is seeking to operate an uninsured national bank. Not only is that not legally permitted, but issuing such a charter would be jaw-droppingly terrible policy from both a safety-and-soundness and consumer protection standpoint. I often disagree with the OCC only policy issues, but chartering an uninsured national bank goes far beyond any reasonable policy position. 

There are lots of reasons to be concerned about Figure's application on its own, but what really worries me is that Figure will be the camel's nose under the tent. If it's possible to get a national banking charter without being an insured depository or subject to the Bank Holding Company Act or the Community Reinvestment Act, ever tech company and its mother is going to be lining up to become a national bank. 

Purdue's Poison Pill and the Broken Chapter 11 System

Jonathan Lipson and Gerald Posner have an important op-ed about the Purdue bankruptcy in the NYT and how the DOJ settlement with Purdue is likely to benefit the Sacklers. What's going on in Purdue is troubling, but not just for its own facts. Purdue illustrates a fundamental breakdown of the checks and balances in the corporate bankruptcy system.

The basic problem is that debtors can pick their judges in a system that precludes any meaningful appellate review. That lets debtors like Purdue push through incredibly inappropriate provisions if they can get a single non-Article III judge of their choice to sign off. This happening in as high-profile and important a case as Purdue should be an alarm bell that things have gone off the rails in large chapter 11 practice. Where Purdue goes, chapter 11 practice in other cases will surely follow. 

Purdue is perhaps the most extreme illustration of the confluence of three trends in bankruptcy each of which is problematic on its own, but which in combination are corrosive to the fundamental legitimacy of the bankruptcy court system.  

• First, there is a problem of debtors attempting to push ever more aggressive and coercive restructuring plans.
• Second, there is the lack of effective appellate review of many critical bankruptcy issues.
• And third, there is the problem of forum shopping, particularly its newest incarnation, which is about shopping for individual judges, not just judicial districts.

Put together this means that debtor are picking their judge, knowing that certain judges will be more permissive of their aggressive restructuring maneuvers and that there will never be any meaningful appellate review of the judges, who are free to disregard even clear Supreme Court decisions. A single judge of the debtor's choosing is effectively the only check on what the debtor can do in chapter 11. That is a broken legal system.  

The OCC Stands Up for Fossil Fuels, Gun Makers, Opioid Manufacturers, and Payday Lenders

Those wascally wabbits at OCC are back at it again in the waning light of the Trumpshchina. The OCC has proposed a rule on "Fair Access to Financial Services." 

The gist of the rule is that banks cannot deny service to business based on the bank's opinion of "the person's legal business endeavors, or any lawful activity in which the person is engaging or has engaged."  Instead, the bank may deny service only based on "quantified and documented failure to meet quantitative, impartial, risk-based standards established in advance by the covered bank".  

This means that if a bank has moral qualms about financing the fossil fuel industry, opioid manufacturers, firearm manufacturers, payday lenders, reproductive health services, pornographers, gay conversion therapy, fur farming, makers of drug paraphernalia, the private prison industry, or businesses involved in the deportation of immigrants, to give a range of examples of businesses that pose serious reputational risk to banks (and very direct financial risk in some instances), well, too bad. Unless the bank can show that the borrower doesn't meet quantitative, impartial, risk-based underwriting standards, it must lend because these are all legal industries. Is it like that any bank will ever have "quantitative, impartial, risk-based underwriting standards" regarding a particular disfavored industry? The standard for denial of service is near impossible to meet, as it seems to require some sort of empirically grounded underwriting by industry that banks are unlikely to have. 

Put another way, the OCC's proposed rule says reputation risk doesn't matter. That's insane. It's a quite reasonable business decision for a bank to say that it doesn't want to be known as the bank that financed school shootings or consumer lending products that it would never offer itself. A bank might reasonably fear that it would lose a chunk of its deposit base if it became known as the go-to bank for a controversial industry. If you don't think reputation risk matters, look at the law firms that have been dropping President Trump's election appeals like a hot potato. They are terrified that they are going to lose other clients who don't want to be associated with those efforts. All the more so with a bank, where depositors are literally financing the loans.  

Trump's Personal Guaranties and Liquidity

The revelations about Donald Trump's taxes might hold in them an explanation for why he didn't divest from his businesses when he became President, despite the obvious political problems that was going to create:  he couldn't afford divesting.  

Trump seems to have personally guarantied hundreds of millions of dollars of corporate borrowing. That's not uncommon for someone in his position, but I would imagine that at least some of those personal guaranties have key man provisions that require him to remain involved with the business. If he doesn't, the loan (and guaranty) might be in default and callable. And there are surely cross-default clauses in some of the borrowings, so it wouldn't be just one loan that could come due, but a bunch of them. It's pretty clear that in 2016 Trump didn't have the liquidity (and perhaps not even the assets) to deal with that sort of situation. 

Now let's be clear. There might have been other motivations for Trump to retain control over his businesses. But to that list, we should add the possibility that he had boxed himself in and couldn't divest even if he had wanted to without ending up broke. 

Congressional testimony on Small Business Lending regulation

I am testifying later today (virtually) before the House Small Business Committee on "Transparency in Small Business Lending."  My written testimony is here.

Here's the background: consumer credit is governed by an extensive regulatory regime, starting with disclosure regulation, but extending to some substantive term regulation, and regular supervision (inspections) of lenders. There is no equivalent system for business lending.

The lack of protections for businesses is because they are presumed to be more sophisticated entities, but the range of financial and legal sophistication among businesses varies considerably. In particular, small businesses are often much more similar to consumers, and in fact their borrowing is often based on the owner's personal credit and guarantied by the owner and collateralized by the owner's personal property.

This leaves small businesses vulnerable to abusive practices that were prohibited in the consumer credit markets in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s:  disclosure of credit costs in non-standardized and misleading terms (e.g., quoting daily interest rates, rather than annual percentage rates, as required for consumer credit by the Truth in Lending Act), and confessions of judgment (prohibited for consumers by the FTC Credit Practices Rule). 

The Committee's chairwoman, Rep. Nydia Velázquez, has proposed a bill that would extend some consumer credit protections to loans for under $2.5 million made to small businesses, as well as create a system for regulating brokers of small business loans. The bill is an important step forward. While there are some tweaks I'd like to see to it, I very much hope it advances and becomes law. 

 

OCC Suggests "Fair Access" Rulemaking to Require Banks to Finance the Oil and Gas Industry

Just when you think it can't get more ridiculous... The Office of Comptroller of the Currency, which hasn't taken racially discriminatory lending seriously, is concerned about banks' discriminatory refusal to serve the oil and gas industry. In fact, the OCC is so concerned that it is suggesting legal theories so farfetched that would be laughed out of a courtroom if it actually tried to act on them. 

The underlying issue here is that banks seem have gotten cold feet about financing fossil fuels. Why? Any number of reasons, including that their investors don't like it (ESG), that global warming threatens their own balance sheets, that oil and gas prices right now are so low that investment in the sector might not be a good business move, and that there's huge risk to fossil fuel projects' value based on the 2020 election outcome. But Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska wants to drill in the Arctic and has expressed concern about banks' unwillingness to fund global warming to the OCC.

In response, the Acting Comptroller of the Currency, Brian Brooks, wrote a letter to Senator Sullivan that can only be described as verging on legal malpractice in the service of political expediency while pushing a vision of economic regulation that looks like communist China. 

Acting Comptroller Brooks argues that 12 U.S.C. § 1(a):

requires the OCC to ensure that banks provide "fair access" to financial services. Decisions by major banks to deny the oil and gas sector, among other targeted industries, access to financial services may violate that statute. Accordingly, the OCC will examine the possibility of issuing regulations defining fair access to provide clarity to banks and customers alike.

Let's take a look at 12 U.S.C. § 1. The relevant section states:  

There is established in the Department of the Treasury a bureau to be known as the “Office of the Comptroller of the Currency” which is charged with assuring the safety and soundness of, and compliance with laws and regulations, fair access to financial services, and fair treatment of customers by, the institutions and other persons subject to its jurisdiction.

12 USC 1 is a general expressive statement of the general purposes of the OCC. It's not even a "be excellent to each other" sort of exhortation. It is not by any stretch a provision creating any substantive rights or obligations. If OCC tried to use this as the basis for a "fair access" rulemaking, as Brooks suggests, the rulemaking would get thrown out by a court on an APA challenge in a hot minute. 12 USC 1 authorizes the OCC to do precisely nothing. 

Whatever 12 USC 1 is, it is not a roving commission for the OCC to undertake rulemakings about "fair access" and "fair treatment", etc. It is not a free-standing authorization to undertake any sort of rulemaking. It is very plainly not a delegation by Congress. Furthermore, the suggestion that "Decisions by major banks to deny the oil and gas sector ... access to financial services may violate that statute" is risible. 12 USC 1 is at most an obligation on the OCC, not on banks. It's embarrassing to see the OCC put forth such a legal argument.  

Note that what Brooks is proposing is the flip-side of the allegations made against Operation Chokepoint, namely that regulators were discouraging banks from lending to certain disfavored industries. Now Brooks is talking about forcing banks to lend to certain favored industries. That sounds like ... communist China. It makes my head spin. 

(btw, where are the conservatives who bitch about affordable housing goals and the CRA? Aren't they up in arms that a financial regulator is talking about forcing banks to lend to someone?)  

But let's say that I'm wrong and Brooks is right. Consider the implications. Imagine what a Comptroller with a different political tinge might have with provisions such as "fair treatment of customers" and "fair access to financial services". Who needs UDAAP when you've got "fair treatment"? Who needs CRA, when you've got "fair access"? If Brooks wants to weaponize 12 USC 1, he might want to first recognize that "fair" is a word that progressives can do a lot more with than he can.  

No More Bailouts

I have a new white paper out from the Roosevelt Institute's Great Democracy Initiative. The paper, which is co-authored with Lindsay Owens and Ganesh Sitaraman, proposes a standing emergency economic stabilization authority to provide an off-the-shelf immediately available response to common problems that recur in national economic crises.

The motivation for the white paper is that in the past dozen years we've been through two rounds of massive ad hoc bailouts. We shouldn't be doing this on the fly. Instead, we need to have a suite of programs ready to go. Think of this as an "in case of emergency, break glass" approach.

Seila Law v CFPB: Winners and Losers

The Supreme Court's long-awaited decision about the CFPB's constitutionality is out. It's a tricky opinion to parse politically. The Court, in a 5-4 partisan decision, held that the CFPB's structure violates the separation of powers because of the for-cause only removal provision for the CFPB Director in conjunction with the Bureau's other features. Accordingly, the Court found that the Director must be removable at will. Here's my attempt to lay out the winners and losers. As you'll see, they do not track with the headlines of the CFPB losing—the CFPB was actually the winner here for most purposes.  

Best Interest Blog

There's a new bankruptcy blog around:  the Best Interest Blog.  Welcome to the blogosphere!  

I'm delighted that the blog features a great post by my former student and research assistant Mitchell Mengden about the "J. Screwed" maneuver of stripping out collateral from the restricted group and then pledging it to other creditors. While the maneuver has been going on for a while, as Mitchell explains, it's interesting how infrequently underwriter's counsel has insisted on J. Crew provisions in bond indentures, although the use seems to be picking up in junk indentures. 

How to Start Closing the Racial Wealth Gap

I have an article out in The American Prospect about How to Start Closing the Racial Wealth Gap. Unlike a lot of writing bemoaning the racial wealth gap, this piece has a concrete reform that could be undertaken on day 1 of a Biden administration without any need for legislation or even notice-and-comment rulemaking. The article  points the disparate impact of an obscure, but enormous indirect fee on mortgage borrowers that the Federal Housing Finance Agency has required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to charge since 2007. The fee is structured in a way that disadvantages borrowers with fewer resources and lower credit scores, which has a disparate impact on borrowers of color. (I'm not saying it's an ECOA violation--that's a different analytical matter.) The fee was adopted in response to a competitive environment in 2007 that doesn't exist today; there's really no good reason for the fee to exist any more. 

The Great American Housing Bubble

My new book, The Great American Housing Bubble:  What Went Wrong and How We Can Protect Ourselves in the Future was just released by Harvard University Press. The book is co-authored with my long-time collaborator, Wharton real estate economist Susan Wachter. It's the culmination of over a decade's worth of work on housing finance that began in the scramble of fall 2008 to come up with ways of assisting hard-pressed homeowners.

Why Is Anyone Paying Retention Bonuses in Today's Economy?

Wall Street Journal today has a story about Hertz having paid out $16 million in retention bonuses before filing for bankruptcy. It seems that several other firms have done the same recently.

In normal times, a retention bonus isn't a crazy idea--there are downsides to remaining employed at a bankrupt company, particularly the uncertainty about the company's future--will it survive, in what form, and under what management? An employee might reasonable look at other employment options if bankruptcy looms. 

But in today's economy, I have trouble seeing a justification for paying retention bonuses for executives. With real unemployment at nearly 25% and few firms hiring (and certainly not rental car companies), the alternative to sticking with the bankrupt company is likely unemployment, not a similar position at another firm. The bonuses just look like corporate waste (and perhaps self-dealing). But if I had to guess, given their size, they'll go unchallenged, whether because of terms of the carve-out for the official committee in the DIP financing or because of a release in the plan.  

The Brown M&M Theory of Telltale Minor Regulatory Violations or What's Wrong with "Earn a savings rate 5X the national average"?

A CapitalOne savings account ad has got me thinking about whether Van Halen has anything to teach regulators. Van Halen is famous for its use of a contract that requires provision of M&Ms for the band, but expressly prohibits provision of any brown M&Ms. It's not that they taste different, of course, but that if a concert promoter fails to adhere to the brown M&M term in the contract, it's a red flag that there might be other more serious problems, so the band will undertake a safety check of the stage and equipment. 

So what does this have to do with CapOne?  I'm one of the few folks in the world who bothers to teach the Truth in Savings Act, so I'm probably more inclined to pay attention to deposit account advertising than most folks. I was about to throw out an early May issue of The Economist (yes, my tastes run distinctly to middle brow), when a CapitalOne ad caught my eye.

The ad, which I've posted to the right says, "Why settle for average?  Earn a savings rate 5X the national average."  In smaller, less bold font it then says "Open a new savings account in about 5 minutes and earn 5X the national average." Under that, in smaller, but bold, "This is Banking Reimagined®." Faint, fine print on the bottom says "ONLY NEW ACCOUNTS FOR CONSUMERS. RATE COMPARISON BASED ON FDIC NATIONAL RATE FOR SAVINGS BALANCE < $100,000. OFFERED BY CAPITAL ONE, N.A. MEMBER FDIC © 2019 CAPITAL ONE" Above this is a photo featuring some random dude (or celebrity I don't recognize) with a croissant and coffee and faux casual outfit (jeans and a t-shirt, but a jacket with a pocket square) inviting the reader to join him. Breakfast and banking perhaps? But in the background, over his shoulder is a sign that says "Savings Rate 5X National Average" (its hard to read in the original, and doesn't come across in my photo, unfortunately).

So what's the problem here?

Corona Cash and Refund Anticipation Checks

Vijay Raghavan, who will be joining the Brooklyn Law School faculty this summer shared a troubling observation about the payment of the recovery rebates ("Corona Cash" or "Mnuchin Mnoney") through direct deposit to taxpayers. It seems that the payments for around 15% of individual tax filings might be going to bank accounts that are closed or not controlled by the taxpayers. That 15% is surely a much larger percentage of households eligible for Corona Cash. I wouldn't be surprised if close to a quarter of eligible households are affected.

Raghavan writes:

Recovery rebates (stimulus payments) under the CARES Act are supposed
to go out this week. A number of people have noted that the payments
will be delayed for unbanked consumers and the funds are at risk of
being swept by lenders or debt collectors. What has received less
attention is the fact that many banked or underbanked taxpayers may
not receive their rebates because they financed tax preparation with a
refund anticipation check (“RAC”). [AJL: a RAC is distinct from a refund anticipation loan, when the preparer advances the taxpayer part of the anticipated tax refund.]

RACs allow taxpayers to defer the cost of tax preparation and finance
preparation out of their refund. The refund is deposited in a
temporary bank account that the tax preparer arranges to have opened.
The taxpayer may never be made aware that the temporary account
exists. The refund is then distributed to the taxpayer minus
preparation fees and ancillary fees via check, direct deposit, or
using some other payment instrument.

The conventional wisdom is RACs are primarily used by unbanked
consumers. But many banked or underbanked taxpayers may also use RACs.
Smaller tax prep chains and individual tax prep stores rely on RAC
financing for at least two reasons. First, the intermediaries these
tax preparers use to process the returns charge numerous
per-transaction fees, which are easier to pay for out of a taxpayer’s
refund since the cash-strapped taxpayer can’t afford to pay for the
intermediaries’ services up-front. Second, financing may serve to
conceal inordinately high tax preparation fees. As a result, it is not
uncommon to find tax preparation stores in low-income neighborhoods
that refuse to accept up-front payment and only process RAC-financed
returns. In the 2018 tax year, approximately 21 million returns were
financed with RACs. [AJL: for context, there were around 150 million individual returns filed in 2018.]

RACs present a few problems for stimulus distribution. If returns were
already filed and processed, the temporary banks accounts may be
closed, which will delay distribution of the rebate. If the temporary
account is still open, the rebate may sit in the account without being
distributed. There should be less problems if returns have not been
filed or are still pending. But if refunds are initially distributed
to the tax preparer as opposed to the taxpayer (which happens in some
cases), there is some risk tax preparer may take the CARES Act money.

The good news is large chains like H&R Block and tax software
companies should have bank account information for the returns they
processed. They could turn this data over to the Treasury but the
CARES Act may limit the Treasury's ability to disburse payments. The
CARES Act seems to only allow electronic disbursement to accounts the
taxpayer has previously authorized. Taxpayers who regularly financed
tax prep with RACs likely have not authorized disbursement to their
own bank account or may not maintain an open bank account in regular
use. Treasury probably has to lean on preparers and software companies
to ensure that payments to RAC-financed returns are disbursed to the
taxpayer bank accounts.

The problems in doing a quick disbursal of Corona Cash highlight some deficiencies in the US payment and banking system. The House counterproposal to the CARES Act had in it a provision for the creation of FedAccounts--giving every consumer a bank account held at the Fed. It's kind of late in the game to try and set up such a system to deal with the corona virus crisis, but the crisis is exposing areas that need to be shored up going forward. 

How to Treat Post-Petition Attorneys' Fees

This is a hyper-technical bankruptcy question that's been bothering me for a while: what happens with post-petition attorneys' fees for undersecured/unsecured creditors after the Supreme Court's 2007 decision in Travellers v. PG&E? Specifically, assuming that the post-petition attorneys' fees fees are allowed as an unsecured claim, are they credited against a collateral cushion before or after post-petition interest?  

Mitch McConnell Is Robbing Taxpayers to Bailout the Rich

There’s a lot of moving parts of the economic Rube Goldberg machine that is the latest McConnell bailout bill, but if you step back and look at the big picture, what becomes clear is that the bill is robbing taxpayers to bail out the rich. Everything in the bill is ultimately taxpayer funded. Yet the benefits of the bill are going disproportionately to the wealthiest households, which are precisely the ones which do not need assistance at this time.   

This massive handout for the wealthy is disguised because it involves the interaction of provisions in two separate titles of the bill, specifically the unemployment insurance provisions in title II and the $425 general billion bailout fund in title IV.  Because the government is picking up the tab for workers under title II and not requiring maintenance of employment by firms that receive the $425 billion under title IV, it is quite possible that the much of the $425 billion will just be used as a slush fund enrich corporate executives and shareholders, who happen to be overwhelmingly the wealthiest households in the country. 

[Update:  The $425 billion might actually be $4.25 trillion by the time the Fed gets done with it. The $425 billion might be a guaranty for an equity tranche that can be leveraged perhaps 10x.]

Bailout Oversight Lessons from 2008

Damon Silvers, the AFL-CIO's Policy Director and former Vice-Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel, has a really important column about the oversight lessons from the 2008 bailout. It was a struggle to get the Obama administration to be forthcoming about what it was doing with the bailout. It will be a much bigger challenge in the current political environment. Read Damon's column here.

How to Help Small Businesses...Fast

A debt collection moratorium operates as float, which is needed to buy time until the relief checks start flowing. In other words, a debt collection moratorium is a form of stimulus. My New York Times op-ed explaining this is here.  

Summary of the McConnell Bailout Bill

The McConnell Bailout Bill (a/k/a HR 748 or the CARES Act), weighs in at just shy of 600 pages. I've taken the liberty of summarizing it in a powerpoint deck for teaching (syllabus be damned) and thought it might be helpful to make generally available. Here it is. (11:00 3/23 updated/corrected version).

I only warrant it as best efforts (meaning I might have misread or just missed something in this monster bill) and I have made no attempt to summarize the details of the social insurance program (UI, Medicare, Medicaid) interventions because they are outside my expertise. You'll have to read the bill itself (Part I and Part II) for that.  

I'll note quickly two things for Slips aficionados: there's no bankruptcy piece anywhere within the bill. There might end up being some very minor bankruptcy changes, but bankruptcy really isn't where the action is right now. 

You might consider how the airline bailout package in the bill compared with GM/Chrysler. That ought to be the benchmark for direct government rescue lending to real economy firms.  

The Bailout Cronyism and Corruption Have Already Begun

We need to bail out the economy, and it's not going to be cheap. The government is going to have to carry the economy for 18-24 months. There's no way of avoiding that. But we don't need to be stupid or corrupt about the way we do it. And stupidity and corruption is unfortunately so hardwired into the Trump administration's DNA that it is being reflected in virtually every proposal out of the administration. 

Start with Treasury's ill-advised proposal to send checks out to every man, woman, and child in the United States. Beside being operationally difficult and misdirecting much of the aid, it is first and foremost a political move. These are serious times. They call for serious responses, not political maneuvers.  

And now, we learn that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is proposing turning to Goldman Sachs executives to provide assistance in administering the bailout. It's hard to think of anything more politically tone-deaf other than perhaps delegating the bailout to Wells Fargo.

More importantly, Goldman is objectively not the right institution to help. Goldman does virtually no small business lending, and their consumer lending is a small portfolio of loans to affluent individuals. It’s not even at the top of the bracket in commercial lending generally. Goldman is primarily an investment bank that does M&A and securities underwriting; they're not known as commercial bankers. The challenges in the bailout response are restructuring and commercial banking issues, including a lot of operational problems. That's just not where Goldman's strengths lie. So why Goldman? Just more cronyism.

This should be a bright flag to ever member of Congress that Steven Mnuchin cannot be trusted to lead the bailout efforts. If he does, we're looking at something a lot worse than HAMP 2.0. A key part of any bailout is going to be its governance. There's inevitably going to be a fair amount of discretion involved in the bailout efforts. We need the bailout to be led by serious people. Sadly, there are not many serious people in any position of authority in the Trump administration. That suggests that Congress needs to come up with a governance structure for any bailout funds that is new and independent of the Trump administration.

I don't mean by this that it needs to be a bunch of people who share my political views. There are plenty of competent and serious people from both parties who aren't in the Trump administration. Hopefully this is a time that Senator McConnell recognizes that he can't turn the keys over the Trumpists; the effectiveness of a bailout is going to depend on whether Congress gets the governance structure right. We need to take a serious problem serious and not see it as an opportunity for self-enrichment and political gain. 

 

COVID-19 Response: The Need for Speed

While Congress struggles to figure out the best way to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, it is very apparent that immediate relief measures are necessary, if only to buy time for a more comprehensive approach. Layoffs are already happening and with they continue, it will result in more economic disruption from diminished consumption.

1. Sending out checks isn't fast enough (and can't happen in two weeks)

There is, fortunately, some recognition of that speed is imperative, but there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. The wrong way is what the Trump administration is proposing, namely sending everyone a check. Besides being poorly tailored—$1,000 isn't enough for those who really need help and is wasted on many other folks—the problem is it just cannot happen fast enough. No one is being honest about the operational problems. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is going around saying that he wants to get checks for $1,000 to every American within two weeks. That's just not possible, and Mnuchin should stop overpromising. 

Here's why it won't work fast enough: for Treasury to send everyone a check, it would need to know where to send the checks. It doesn't. Treasury knows where to send checks to individuals who are receiving Social Security and Disability Insurance (actually, it would be electronic transfers in almost all such cases). But what about everyone else? Treasury doesn't know (a) who is still alive, and (b) where they live. The first problem might mean sending out some checks that shouldn't happen, but the second problem is more serious, as it means that checks won't get where they need to go. Treasury is able to send me a tax refund because I give an address with my tax return. At best Treasury has year-old information, which will be wrong for many people. Those people who most need the money are the people who are most likely to have moved in the last year—economically insecure renters (see Matthew Desmond's Evicted on this). Sending everyone a check really isn't a very good solution. 

2. Foreclosure/eviction moratoria are equivalent to an immediate cash injection to the economy.

Fortunately, there's a better solution:  an immediate national moratorium on foreclosures, evictions, repossessions, utility disconnects, garnishments, default judgments, and negative credit reporting for all consumers and small businesses. The point of a national collection action moratorium is not to be nice to debtors. A national collection moratorium is a stimulus measure:  it has the effect of immediately injecting cash into the economy in that it allows people and businesses to shift funds from debt service obligations to other consumption. It's basically a giant forced loan from creditors to debtors. And it happens immediately, without any administrative apparatus. There's nothing else that will have such a big effect so immediately. Congress should move on moratorium legislation asap as a stand-alone bill to buy itself some more time for a longer-term fix.  

Now let's be clear—what I am talking about is not debt forgiveness. It is forced forbearance. The debts will still be owed and may accrue interest and late fees (there may be ways to limit those, but that's another matter). That's important because it substantially reduces the argument that the delay constitutes a Taking—government is always free to change how remedies operate, such as changing foreclosure timelines, etc. without the changes being a Taking.

This is exactly what a moratorium would be doing. A number of states and localities have already undertaken such moratoria, and FHFA and HUD have done so for federally or GSE insured or guarantied loans. But we've got a national crisis, so this should be done uniformly on the federal level using the Interstate Commerce power for the entire consumer and small business debt market. Given that all collection actions involve the mails or wires and that debt markets are national, this seems squarely within the scope of federal power. 

Now a collection moratorium is not a permanent fix and will cause some dislocations itself. Consumers/small businesses will eventually need to come current on their obligations, and they may need assistance to do so, but that's something that we can work on later when we're not in free fall. But right now what we need more than anything is time, and a collection moratorium can buy us some time more broadly and more immediately than any other possible step. 

COVID-19's Impact on Higher Education's Finances

There's a lot to say about the economic dislocation from the coronavirus and the economic policy response. But I want to focus for a moment about its impact on higher education.  Lots of schools have gone to virtual classrooms either temporarily or for the rest of the semester. It's not ideal pedagogically (and it really unsuitable for certain types of classes), but it works as a stop gap measure, especially for courses which have already been going for several weeks, in which some rapport has developed between faculty and students.  

But there's no reason to think that this disruption will be over by the end of the semester. What happens with summer courses? And most importantly, what happens in the fall? Will schools be able to enroll new cohorts of students? I suppose it's possible to teach 2Ls and 3Ls virtually all the time. But can that be done for 1Ls? Or for college freshmen? And even if it is possible to do generally, what about enrolling foreign students? To be sure, University of Phoenix and other on-line schools do this all the time, but they offer a very different kind of educational experience. Will students seek to defer for a year or simply not enroll?

This matters hugely for universities as businesses.

Federal Reserve Emergency Lending as a Coronavirus Response

Senator Elizabeth Warren has put out a plan for mitigating the economic fallout from the coronavirus. Of particular note is that she is proposing having the Federal Reserve use its emergency lending power to support businesses affected by the coronavirus in order to ensure that they are able to provide paid health care leave to affected employees and avoid mass layoffs.  

This post addresses whether the Fed has the legal authority for such lending, what precedent exists, how it differs materially from the 2008 bailouts, and why it's a good idea. (Full disclosure: I consulted with the Warren campaign on this plan.)  

Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals Bankruptcy and Channeling Injunction Puzzle

The outline of Mallinckrodt Pharmaceutical’s chapter 11 proposal (no filing yet) puzzles me.  Mallinckrodt is looking to put its US speciality generic subs in the chapter to slough off opioid liability, while keeping the parent and other subs out of bankruptcy.  The proposal would have Mallinckrodt fund a trust with $1.6 billion (face value) of cash payments and warrants for the purchase of 19.99% of Mallinckrodt parent’s common stock at a strike price that’s currently in the money.  The bankruptcy court would be asked to enter a channeling injunction along with third-party releases that would direct all opioid creditors to look solely to the trust for recovery, freeing Mallinckrodt parent and its speciality generic subs from the uncertainty opioid liability overhang.  

Here’s what puzzles me. The channeling injunction and third party releases being sought would be entered under section 105(a).  The only express channeling injunction and third party release procedure in the Bankruptcy Code, section 524(g), is solely for asbestos cases. While we’ve seen channeling injunctions and third party releases entered in a range of contexts beside asbestos under section 105, it seems problematic to me for a court to authorize either under section 105(a) on a less strict basis than is required under section 524(g). If a court could just go with judicially-crafted section 105(a) requirements in lieu of section 524(g), it would render section 524(g) requirements meaningless in the asbestos context.  

Boy Scouts of America: Venue Demerit Badge

Boy Scouts of America’s bankruptcy filing is among the most flagrant abuse of the venue statute ever. It’s an illustration of just how broken the bankruptcy venue system is. But it might not be too late to do something about it. 

Here’s the quick background (some of which is also covered in Pamela Foohey's post). Boy Scouts of America (BSA) is a defendant along with its local councils (essentially franchises) in myriad sex abuse suits. BSA is a federally chartered entity, headquartered in Texas. In July 2019, roughly 210 days ago, BSA incorporated its only subsidiary, Delaware BSA, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, of which BSA is the sole member.

Delaware BSA, LLC has less than $50,000 in assets (and possibly zero), consisting primarily (or perhaps solely) of a bank account in Delaware. It carries on no business and has no real employees. In short Delaware BSA, LLC, is a pure corporate shell. Its sole purpose appears to be to enable BSA to have proper venue for a bankruptcy filing in Delaware.  That’s because the bankruptcy venue statute allows a firm to file for bankruptcy where it is incorporated, where its principal place of business or assets are, or where a bankruptcy of an affiliate is pending.  BSA utilized this last provision to get Delaware venue:  it had its subsidiary Delaware BSA, LLC, file for bankruptcy in Delaware first and then it bootstrapped its way in by virtue of its affiliate having a case pending in Delaware. 

It’s hard to conceive of a more blatant abuse of the venue statute. (Ok, there's Winn-Dixie, which formed its affiliate 12 days before the filing, rather than outside of the 180 days required by the venue statute.) But I think there is a solution in this case, if you bear to the end of a long post.  

The Milken Pardon and the Trump Connection?

There's something really surreal about Donald Trump's pardon of Michael Milken. Trump and Milken were (with Ivan Boesky) the leading symbols of the excesses of capitalism in the 1980s. And here we are today. 

It seems that whatever Trump does, there's always a previous Trump tweet or quotation, and this time doesn't disappoint. Here's what a certain Donald J. Trump was quoted in 1990 in the NY Times regarding Milken's jail sentence:

"It's a very tough sentence. When you see that muggers and murders don't get as hard a sentence, it seems very tough. It may serve as a deterrent. If it does, then it will be a wise sentence."

In fairness to Trump, it's hard to see Milken's prosecution as having served as a much of a deterrent. But then, Milken went to jail for the wrong thing. He ended up pleading guilty to some (relatively minor) securities law infractions involving inaccurate securities filings in a case brought by the US Attorney Rudolf Guiliani (!). Milken was never prosecuted for his much more serious and complicated wrong-doing.

The Big Lie Lives On

The Big Lie just won’t die. The Big Lie, of course, is The Government Made Me Do It theory of the financial crisis, that the housing bubble whose collapse set off the crisis was the product of government policies encouraging affordable home mortgage credit.

A video emerged recently of presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg espousing the Big Lie, and incredibly, the New York Times is running an op-ed that defends the Big Lie. Most of the op-ed comes verbatim from a new book by Christopher Caldwell. Caldwell has written a remarkably misleading piece about government affordable housing policy. It misrepresents that actual legal requirements, gets the relationship between the GSEs and private securitization market entirely backwards, wrongly implies support from scholarship that is saying something altogether different, and relies on outdated scholarship. I get that Caldwell isn't a housing finance expert, and his book is a trade book on the welfare state, but this is exactly the sort of silliness that happens from drive-by analysis. I'm pretty sure that the Times wouldn't run unsourced climate denial claptrap, but this is the housing finance equivalent. Let me highlight several examples.  

Mick Mulvaney's South Carolina Land Shenanigans All Under Seal

Last year the Washington Post covered Mick Mulvaney's South Carolina land deal gone sour. It was a pretty amazing case that is fantastic for teaching purposes. Mick's moves would have made some of the most sophisticated distressed debt funds (not to mention a real estate developer president) blush with shame (or green with envy).

I've got an update on the case that appears quite troubling: it seems that the South Carolina court has put everything except the docket entry list under seal, including previously public available documents. If I am correct, this is really disturbing because would indicate a willingness by the South Carolina court system to accommodate Mick's desire to shield keep his business dealings from any public scrutiny, even though there is no legitimate reason that I can see for the court to turn seal all the documents in a public judicial proceeding about a commercial real estate foreclosure action. 

"Middle Class Faux"?

I did some digging into Joe Biden's previously unexplored roll call vote on floor amendments to BAPCPA. They were ugly then and have not improved with age. My full take is in The American Prospect. 

Elizabeth Warren's Work in the CMC Heartland Case

Elizabeth Warren’s bankruptcy work continues to be in the news, now with a Washington Post article on her work in the CMC Heartland case. Unfortunately, the Washington Post completely misses the point about why Elizabeth decided to work on this case. Let me correct the record about Elizabeth’s (very limited) role in the CMC Heartland case.

Trump Administration Declares Open Season on Consumers for Subprime Lenders

The Trump administration has just proposed a rule that declares open season on consumers for subprime lenders. The Office of Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (on whose board the CFPB Director serves) have released parallel proposed rulemakings that will effectively allowing subprime consumer lending that is not subject to any interest rate regulation, including by unlicensed lenders.

The Rigged Game of Private Equity

The Stop Wall Street Looting Act introduced by Senator Warren has the private equity industry's hackles up. They're going to get a chance to say their piece at a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Tuesday. The bill is a well-developed, major piece of legislation that takes a comprehensive belt-suspenders-and-elastic waist band to limit private equity abuses: it's got provisions on private equity firm liability for their portfolio company obligations, limitations on immediate looting capital distributions, protections for workers and consumers in bankruptcy, protections for investors in private equity funds, and of course a reform of private equity's favorable tax treatment. The bill shows that Senator Warren truly has the number of the private equity industry.

 

In this post I want to address the provision in the bill that seems to truly scare parts of the private equity industry: a targeted curtailment of limited liability for the general partners of private equity funds and their control persons. This provision terrifies some private equity firms because it requires private equity to put its money where its mouth is. The provision is essentially a challenge to private equity firms to show that they can make money off of the management expertise they claim, rather than by playing rigged game with loaded dice. 

 

Private equity claims to make money by buying bloated public companies, putting them on diets to make them lean and mean, and then selling the spiffed up company back to the public. The whole conceit is that private equity can recognize bloated firms and then has the management expertise to make them trim and competitive. If true, that's great. But as things currently stand, it's near impossible for a private equity general partner—that is the private equity firms themselves like Bain and KKR—to lose money, even if they have zero management expertise. That's because they're playing a rigged game. The game is rigged because there is a structural risk-reward imbalance in private equity investment. That's what the limited liability curtailment in the Stop Wall Street Looting Act corrects. Here's how the private equity game is rigged:  

Private Equity’s Chicken Little Dance

The private equity industry is lashing out at Senator Warren’s Stop Wall Street Looting Act with some pretty outlandish claims that rise to Chicken Little level. According to an analysis by the US Chamber of Commerce's Center for Capital Market Competitiveness, the bill will result in the $3.4 trillion of investment provided through private equity over the past five years entirely disappearing from the economy, along with as much as 15% of the jobs in the US economy disappearing.    

 

I cannot sufficiently underscore how laughably amateurish this claim is. I’ve seen some risible financial services industry anti-regulatory claims before, but this one really takes the cake for extreme hand-waving. I expected better from the Masters-of-the-Universe.

 

Here’s why the private equity industry’s claims are utter bunkum.

What a Local Traffic Snafu Teaches About Artificial Intelligence in Underwriting

The DC suburbs are a case study in NIMBYism. Lots of communities try to limit through-traffic via all sorts of means:  speed bumps, one-way streets, speed cameras, red-light cameras, etc.  The interaction of one of these NIMBYist devices with GPS systems is a great lesson about the perils of artificial intelligence and machine learning in all sorts of contexts.  Bear with the local details because I think there's a really valuable lesson here.

Coercive "Consent" to Paperless Statements

If you've logged on to any sort of on-line financial account in the past few years, there's a very good chance that you've been asked to consent to receive your periodic statements electronically, rather than on paper. Financial institutions often pitch this to consumers as a matter of being eco-friendly (less paper, less transportation) or of convenience (for what Millennial wants to deal with paper other than hipsters with their Moleskines). While there is something to this, what's really motivating financial institutions first and foremost is of course the cost-savings of electronic statements. Electronic statements avoid the cost of paper, printing, and postage. If we figure a cost of $1 per statement and 12 statements per year, that's a lot of expense for an account that might only have a balance of $3,500—roughly 34 basis points annually.

I'm personally not comfortable with electronic statements for two reasons. First, I worry about the integrity of electronic records. I have no way of verifying the strength of a bank's data security, and I assume that no institution is hack proof. Indeed, messing around with our financial ownership record system would arguably be more disruptive to the United States than interference with our elections. FDIC insurance isn't very useful if there aren't records on which to base an insurance claim. Of course, the usefulness of a bank statement from two weeks ago for determining the balance in my account today is limited too, but if I can prove a balance at time X, perhaps the burden of proof is on the bank (or FDIC) to prove that it has changed subsequently. 

Now, I recognize that not everyone is this paranoid about data integrity. Even if you aren't, however, paper can play an important role in forcing one to pay attention to one's financial accounts, and I think that's valuable.  I am much more likely to ignore an email than I am a paper letter in part because I know that the chance the paper letter is junk is lower because it costs more to send than the spam.  As a result, I look at my snail mail, but often let my e-mail pile up unread. And even when I read, I don't always click on the link, which is what would be in an electronic bank statement.  Getting the paper bank statement effectively forces me to look at my accounts periodically, whereas an emailed link to a statement wouldn't. And monitoring one's accounts is just generally a good thing--it helps with fraud detection and helps one know one's financial status.  

So here's where this is going:  I've got no issue if a consumer wants to freely opt-in to electronic statements.  But the way my financial institutions communicate with me when I go on-line involves really coercive choice architecture. One bank presents me with a pre-checked list of accounts to be taken paperless, such that to not go paperless I have to uncheck several boxes.  I am essentially opted-in to paperless. Another bank has a prominent "I agree" button without an equivalent "I decline" button-the only way to decline paperless is to find the small link labeled "close" to close the pop-up window. "Consent" in this circumstances strikes me as iffy. This strikes me as an area in which regulators (I'm looking at you CFPB) really ought to exercise some supervisory muscle and tell banks to cut it out. If folks want to go paperless, that's fine, but don't try and coerce them. Doing so is contrary to the spirit of the E-SIGN Act at the very least and might enter into UDAAP territory.

Bankruptcy Future Claims—Elizabeth Warren Edition

Welcome to Credit Slips, the rarified world of “self-described bankruptcy nerds.” Today we’re looking at Future Claims—Elizabeth Warren Edition.

Now, it’s not every day that our humble group blog gets discussed in the New York Times. But as our former-co-blogger Elizabeth Warren continues to rise in the polls, the media and her opponents are taking a renewed interest in the bankruptcy consulting work she did when she was a law professor. Just recently, the New York Times ran a lengthy article on her past consulting workthat even referred our little “bankruptcy nerd” blog. (You might note that we now also offer sovereign debt, financial regulation, and side salads. Come for the bankruptcy, stay for the pie.)

The NY Times piece discussed several cases that Elizabeth worked on, but it failed to clearly articulate the core bankruptcy principle that Elizabeth was fighting for that runs throughout most of the cases highlighted in the article and how Elizabeth’s work was consistently about making the economy and the bankruptcy system work for employees of companies in distress, retirees, and folks injured by a company’s product. To suggest otherwise is ridiculous and fundamentally misunderstands how the bankruptcy system is supposed to work.