Word: rates
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...interest would make firms eager to modify loans - may be wrong. Economists at MIT and the Federal Reserve banks of Boston and Atlanta have found that about 30% of borrowers who become seriously delinquent on their payments later catch up. A big deal has been made of the redefault rate - the high number of borrowers who wind up missing even modified payments - but the new finding about the large percentage of loans that "self-cure" indicates that servicers might actually be smart to delay rewriting many loans, since chances are they won't ultimately lead to foreclosure anyway...
What's more, the abstinence-only model is far from foolproof: 90% of alcoholics do not get sober on their first attempt, and most rehab programs report a more than 50% relapse rate in their patients within months. First attempts to quit smoking cold turkey fail just as often. So, helping drinkers and smokers cut down, even if they can't quit immediately, may have significant value, says Teri Franklin, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. "If you can prevent people from inhaling the 4,000 chemicals in just one cigarette, over 400 of which are carcinogenic...
...east and west, industrial and agrarian. Now add one more: smoking and nonsmoking. In the U.S. and other developed countries, Big Tobacco is on the run, chased to the curbs by a combination of lawsuits, smoking bans and high taxes. Fewer than 20% of Americans now smoke--the lowest rate since reliable records have been kept. President Barack Obama recently signed laws boosting federal cigarette taxes from 32¢ a pack to $1 and giving the FDA the power to regulate cigarettes like any other food or drug...
...statement, given that all consumer financial regulation is based on the premise that individuals need help from government in dealing with banks and other lenders. From the 1930s through the '60s, banks were straitjacketed by D.C.-dictated interest-rate and lending rules meant to keep them and their customers out of trouble. Decades of haphazard and at times heedless deregulation followed, with eventually disastrous results. The CFPA legislation envisions a partial return of the straitjacket. Among its other tasks, the new agency would devise plain-vanilla products that lenders must offer customers - but those customers could still opt for complexity...
Baraka is asked to evaluate Booker. "I give him credit. The homicide rate has gone down," says the poet. "But I don't know if you can judge the quality of life in a city by just the homicide rate. Where is the employment? Where is the education? What is in it for the residents...