Stephen Colbert, the talk show host and Presidential candidate, has found a new whipping boy: Congressman Louis Gutierrez’s new Payday Loan Reform Act (HR 1214).

Here’s Colbert with his take on the bill.

He makes a few good points:

• We’re talking about reform from an Illinois Congressman!
• anemic regulation will be, well, anemic.  And it will be Federally sanctioned.
• interest rates of 400 to 800 percent are perfectly appropriate when you get a 2000 percent raise on your next paycheck.
• Gutierrez’s top campaign supporter was QC Holdings ($10,100 in contributions.)

HR 1106, the “Helping Families Save Their Homes Act” passed the US House of Representatives late on Friday. The bill will institute loan modifications measures. By the estimates of its supporters, it will save 1 million homes.

This comes as news reports indicate that one in 10 US families with a mortage is either late on payments or in foreclosure. One report says that there is a new foreclosure every thirteen seconds.

Progress made over thirty years of policy work seeking to promote homeownership has been undermined by subprime lending.  Families can’t go back.  While the CEOs of Countrywide and Bear Stearns can retire to their mansions, getting by on severance packages and cashed out stock options, families don’t have their homes any longer.  Angelo Mozilo, for example, left Countrywide having taken home more than $200 million from 2001 to 2006.

Oh, but I am getting sidetracked here.  Going forward, policy works because it solves problems.  Its been a long time since we needed so much policy.  Because, its been a long time since we had such problems.  The unemployment rate reached 8.1 percent today, and economists were pleased because they thought it might have been worse.

The Bill still has to make its way through the Senate. There, it is S 61.  The bill would allow judges to make modifications to a mortgage in bankruptcy court.  The lack of flexibility is vexing.  While it does allow judges to move through cases quickly, it ties their hands if they feel a situation deserves some remedy.

Utah has passed a new bill that will give mobile home owners some recourse when they are forced to pick up and move because of the closure of their park.  The bill, entitled “Payment of Mobile Home Park Relocation Expenses,” passed on Feb. 26th.  It is waiting on the signature of Utah governor Jon Huntsman, Jr.  The bill was introduced by Senator Wayne Niederhauser (R-Sandy) and Greg Hughes, R-Draper.

“A developer is looking to purchase the land,” Hughes said to the Salt Lake Tribune. “This bill is an attempt to find a solution to a unique but difficult problem.”

The essence of the bill is that residents forced to leave their park homes are going to have access to a fund to accomodate their needs.  The funding will come from revenues created by tax-increment financing.  The source of financing will be on additional property tax revenues created by former mobile homes, in the same municipality, that have now been re-purposed into a higher use.

Obama’s new budget contained an unexpected wrinkle.  As written, the President’s plan intends to shelve the guaranteed student loan program.  In its place, students would apply for loans directly to the US Department of Education.

The announcement came after markets closed on Thursday.

This sets up a battle between lobbyists for some of the top for-profit names in education (Sallie Mae, Apollo/University of Phoenix, and First Marblehead against the Democrats.

Students generally can get a better deal through the US Department of Education.  In spite of that opportunity, students still went to private loans because rising tuition often outpaced available grants and US Ed loan funds.

Obama believes that the new proposal would save taxpayers approximately $4 billion per year.

A report from the Office of the New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says that bonuses on Wall Street are going to amount to at least $18.4 billion.  The number will likely be higher, though, because this sum fails to include dollars for stock options.  In the event that some options are granted in the money, or close enough to have time value, the sum is greater. It is the sixth best year for bonuses on record.

Hard to believe.

This shows that the ongoing defense of bonuses is actually insincere.  Bonuses were defended for years as a means of rewarding (more…)