Sustained high unemployment has permanently changed our economy, and the middle class must change to keep up. This situation is not entirely new; for example, unemployment peaked at 10.8% in 1982. But then, the jobless could count on unemployment benefits and other government benefits to tide them over. The unemployment rate quickly went back down...Read More

Florida has more long-term unemployed workers than almost any other state in the country. A recent report gave more identity to the long-term unemployed, or those who have been jobless for more than 26 weeks. In Florida, Alaska, California, Illinois, North Carolina, New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island, between 46% and 60% of the jobless...Read More

Assume that you and your neighbor disagree over the ownership of a house, and you file a lawsuit to quiet title. Before the case is heard, the house burns down. What happens at the court date? Most courts have refused to enter a decision in this situation, explaining that the point is now moot because...Read More

Bankruptcy does not have to mean the end of the game. When you and your friends played “Monopoly,” declaring bankruptcy meant financial failure so intense that recovery was difficult or impossible. Some moneylenders and debt-buyers like to perpetuate that idea in the real world, to keep honest American families form declaring bankruptcy to eliminate debt...Read More

A major mortgage lender is returning to the subprime market. Since the mortgage collapse in 2008, skittish banks have only loaned money to the most credit-worthy consumers. Now, faced with a major revenue loss as mortgage lending volume declines overall, Wells Fargo may be loaning money to consumers with credit scores as low as 600....Read More

Americans are back to borrowing at a near-record pace. The government recently announced that consumer debt rose 1.1 percent to $11.28 trillion in the third quarter of 2013, the highest such increase since the first quarter of 2008 and close to the all-time record high, set just before the housing collapse in the third quarter...Read More

An increasing number of cities are turning to the power of eminent domain to reduce the number of residential home foreclosures. Cities in New Jersey, New York, Minnesota and California are exploring the possibility of “friendly condemnations” in which the city buys the mortgage of an underwater homeowner. If the investor refuses to sell, the...Read More

Consumer bankruptcy filings are expected to remain high in certain parts of the country. Although the filing rate is expected to decline overall in 2014, consumers in areas dominated by high unemployment and a poor housing market are expected to keep filing Chapter 13 Bankruptcy in large numbers. Meanwhile, more and more Chapter 7 bankruptcies...Read More