New Real Estate Form: “Earnest Money Receipt” “No one uses it.” “No one’s going to use it.” “It doesn’t work online.” The “it” in question is a new Realtor form, titled “Earnest Money Check,” that agents are being encouraged to use instead of faxing or emailing a copy of the Buyer’s actual check (the current practice)....Read More
Safety in Numbers? If you owe the bank $100, that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem. –John Paul Getty If a small investor gets ripped off by Wall Street, they’re SOL. But if a whole lot of investors get ripped off by Wall Street, there’s at least the...Read More
That’s today’s financial headline. Actually, that’s been the daily headline for the last week or so. Apparently, something about how the U.S. just got past its debt ceiling crisis – for now — didn’t sit well with global markets. Imagine that . . .Read More
“Is That Like a Licensing Fee?” Getting breakfast at McDonald’s this morning, my 8 year-old son asked me how much a Redbox was. If you didn’t know, McDonald’s — and virtually every other retail location — now sport the ubiquitous red vending machines that dispense DVD’s, not soft drinks. Thinking he meant a DVD rental,...Read More
Protecting Consumers From Banks It turns out that Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren will head the new Consumer Protection Financial Bureau, after all. The Bureau, which Warren proposed creating, is charged with ensuring that “consumers are protected from unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts and practices and from discrimination.” Seeing as how millions of consumers are routinely...Read More
Still Casting Stones . . . But Now With (Lots of) Caveats An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today. “Laurence J. Peter [Editor’s note: to see my rebuttal to Freakonomics, the predecessor to SuperFreakonomics, click here] So, I finally finished off the (surprisingly short)...Read More
