http://www.seattledebtlaw.com/blog Bankruptcy, foreclosure, and debt help for Seattle-area consumers Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:47:31 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en As I mentioned last month, I'm appearing each month on KCTS's About The Money with Josephine Cheng. On tonight's edition, Josephine and I talk about the laws governing debt collection and how to deal with collectors. About the Money airs each Tuesday at 7:30 PM on KCTS-9, and repeats on ... http://www.seattledebtlaw.com/blog/2008/11/18/about-the-money-debt-collection/ A pilot program currently under development could mean relief for distressed credit card borrowers: Big banks have formed an unusual alliance with consumer advocates to urge the government to allow huge portions of credit card debt to be forgiven, a turnabout from recent years when the banking industry lobbied ... http://www.seattledebtlaw.com/blog/2008/10/31/credit-card-debt-forgiveness-on-the-horizon/ From Bloomberg: Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said a "once-in-a-century credit tsunami" has engulfed financial markets and conceded that his free-market ideology shunning regulation was flawed. "Yes, I found a flaw," Greenspan said in response to grilling from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. "That is precisely the reason ... http://www.seattledebtlaw.com/blog/2008/10/23/now-he-tells-us/ I know I said that blogging would resume several days ago, but these are hectic times for someone in my line of work, as you might expect, and I'm still catching up from my week off. For now, let me just mention that I will be appearing monthly on About ... http://www.seattledebtlaw.com/blog/2008/10/14/about-the-money-and-me/ A thousand pardons for not keeping up with all the eminently relevant things that have been going on in the financial world over the past few weeks, but I'm getting married tomorrow and the preparations have been taking up all of my blogging time. We're off for a weeklong honeymoon ... http://www.seattledebtlaw.com/blog/2008/09/19/a-brief-hiatus/ Kerry Killinger, Washington Mutual's CEO since 1990, was fired by the board of directors Sunday. The mortgage crisis, surprise surprise, was the culprit: Critics charged WaMu put itself in an especially difficult position by its acquisition of a mortgage company that specializes in loans to people with poor credit histories. That ... http://www.seattledebtlaw.com/blog/2008/09/08/wamu-death-watch-board-fires-ceo-killinger/ For a candidate who is as undeniably committed to the cause of economic justice as Barack Obama is, his selection of Joe Biden to be his running mate is a severe disappointment. In 2005, when Obama was working with Sens. Durbin and Dodd to blunt the excesses of the harsh ... http://www.seattledebtlaw.com/blog/2008/08/25/biden/ The New York Post, of all publications, had a comprehensive article yesterday about the meteoric growth of Washington Mutual and the decisions it's made that may spell its demise as an independent bank: To many the situation is looking increasingly dire for WaMu, especially in the wake of the stunning collapse of ... http://www.seattledebtlaw.com/blog/2008/08/18/wamu-death-watch-no-woo-hoo-at-wamu/ The Predatory Lending Association: "Helping payday lenders extract maximum profit from the working poor." http://www.seattledebtlaw.com/blog/2008/08/08/we-laugh-to-keep-from-crying/ ...in the form of 56,000 comments received by the Federal Reserve during the comment period for proposed new regulations that would impose new restrictions on the abusive practices of credit card issuers. The comment period, which ended August 4, saw a record number of responses come in to the Fed, ... http://www.seattledebtlaw.com/blog/2008/08/06/the-people-have-shouted/