Aurelia Butler

The proposed settlement, which would include a $100,000 fine, would resolve a lawsuit brought by the CFPB against Forster & Garbus in 2019, accusing it of filing tens of thousands of lawsuits without properly documenting the underlying loans. The settlement is pending court approval.In a statement, CFPB Director Rohit Chopra accused the firm of “bombarding … customers with sketchy lawsuits” on behalf of major financial institutions and said the consumer watchdog would continue to scrutinize banks’ relationships with “lawsuit mills.”Representatives for Forster & Garbus as well as Citigroup and Discover did not respond to requests for comment. The CFPB’s complaint stated that Forster & Garbus did not admit nor deny the allegations. According to the CFPB, between 2014 and 2016, fewer than a dozen attorneys at the firm produced more than 99,000 debt-collection lawsuits but retained documentation for the debts in question in only a fraction of cases. The agency also accuses the firm of misleading consumers by claiming its attorneys were meaningfully involved in preparing the lawsuits.Under the terms of the settlement, the law firm, based in Commack, New York, will be required to drop any pending lawsuit that lacks proper documentation and refrain from bringing further such unsupported litigation, according to the CFPB.The firm will also agree to retain documentation showing borrowers in fact authorized the debts in question, recording the identities of the original creditors and of lenders that may have purchased the debt, among other requirements. More

(Reuters) – A look at the day ahead in Asian markets from Jamie McGeever.U.S. inflation will set off the global market fireworks on Thursday and beyond, but there are a couple of other potential rockets that could spark Asian markets into life before that – Chinese and Indian inflation data. China, the world’s second largest economy, is expected to register a second consecutive month of month-on-month consumer price declines in December, something not recorded since the first half of 2021. Economists are forecasting a drop of 0.1% following a 0.2% fall in November, while the annual rate of inflation is expected to tick up to 1.8% from an eight-month low of 1.6%. GRAPHIC: China CPI inflation (https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/zjvqjeedzpx/ChinaCPI.jpg) Indian CPI, meanwhile, has slowed steadily and fairly substantially in recent months. But with an economy growing much faster than China’s – India’s GDP is expected to expand this year by around 7% – inflation remains at a higher level.Economists expect annual inflation of 5.9% in December, almost identical to November’s 5.88%, which was the lowest since January and almost two percentage points down from the April peak. GRAPHIC: India CPI inflation (https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/xmvjkllqmpr/IndiaCPI.jpg) Needless to say, the two central banks are at different stages of the cycle. India’s has raised interest rates by 225 basis points since May to a three-year high of 6.25%, and another modest hike is expected soon. Almost alone among the world’s large economies, China’s eased policy last year. But the main event of the day is the U.S. inflation report for December that lands at 8:30 a.m. Eastern (1330 GMT). The consensus view is for the annual rate to fall to 6.5% from 7.1% in November, which would be the slowest since October 2021 and significantly down from the peak of 9.1% last June. The monthly rate of inflation is expected to be 0%.Investors are in hopeful mood – Treasury bond yields fell on Wednesday, Wall Street and world stocks surged (again), and U.S. credit spreads are their narrowest since April. Three key developments that could provide more direction to markets on Thursday: – U.S., Chinese, Indian inflation (December)- Japan current account (November)- Fed’s Barker, Harkin and Bullard speak More

Investing.com — Inflation is widely expected to show further signs of easing on Thursday, and could fall by a staggering 76% in this cycle and fall to 2.2% by year-end, helping stocks charge higher in the second half of the year, Wells Fargo said in a note on Wednesday. “While the market is expecting a sizable year-over-year fall in CPI from the November to the December reading, our analysis is suggesting that inflation will fall to 2.2% by the end of this year,” Wells Fargo said in note on Wednesday, ahead of the December inflation report.The bold call on inflation has raised some eyebrows on Wall Street as inflation is forecast to cool to just 6.5% December – still some ways away from the Wells Fargo’s 2%-ish year-end estimate.Wells Fargo, however, appears to have history on its side. Over the last eight economic cycles – as far back as the late 1969/early 1970 – the average decline in the pace of inflation has been 70%, the bank said.“We are expecting a decline of almost 76% in this cycle, so just slightly above the eight-cycle average [of 70%],” Wells Fargo added. With the fed determined to stamp out red-hot inflation, expectations for inflation to fall significantly will likely play a major role in boosting risk assets.“The inflation story has been the main focus because that is what would change the Fed from a posture of trying to decrease the prices of the things that we own [risk assets], to either a neutral stance or a posture of trying to keep them up like they have during the last 15 years,” Phillip Toews, CEO & Portfolio Manager of Toews Asset Management told Investing.com’s Yasin Ebrahim in a recent interview. “It all hinges on that,” Toews added.The Fed’s expectations on inflation don’t even come close to the dramatic decline estimated by Wells Fargo. The Fed’s latest projections from its December meeting, showed members estimated core personal consumption expenditures, the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation to fall to 3.5% this year from 4.8% in 2022.The biggest thorn in the Fed’s efforts to ease inflation has been red-hot demand in the services sector, excluding housing, spurred by robust wage growth. But a recession, expected to occur in 2023, Wells Fargo estimates, is likely to do a lot of the heavy lifting on cooling inflation as weakening demand for services and goods comes underway on the economy.As the economy recovers and progresses through the second half of 2023, “we believe equity markets will react positively to an improved economic outlook and likely Fed rate cuts,” Wells Fargo said.  The debate on potential rate cuts hasn’t yet been settled, with some warning that the strong labor market propping up wages and consumer spending will keep the Fed’s monetary policy measures tighter for longer.Markets are refusing to embrace the fact that “the Fed which has been for so long, a proponent of market prices, always pushing them higher…but now is doing just the opposite,” Toews added. “We probably still haven’t internalized that the Fed has an interest in keeping financial assets [including] stock prices lower.” More

Most importantly, Biden said he wanted to see “serious federal protections for Americans’ privacy,” including putting limits on how much data like location, biometrics and health information can be collected. He also highlighted the specific risk to children.”We must hold social-media companies accountable for the experiment they are running on our children for profit,” he wrote, citing young people’s struggles with bullying, violence, trauma and mental health. He also urged a reform of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to force tech companies to “take responsibility for the content they spread and the algorithms they use.”Both Republicans and Democrats have spent much of the past several years probing different aspects of the tech sector, largely agreeing that there are problems with the power of Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s Google, Meta’s Facebook (NASDAQ:META) and others while largely disagreeing on how to address those problems.In a statement following the release of the opinion piece, Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar said she would continue to push for passage of bipartisan legislation she sponsored to bar the companies from favoring their own businesses in search results, among other measures. More

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, speaking alongside Netanyahu at a televised news conference, said the government would maintain fiscal responsibility while pursuing the plan.”Our economy has entered an inflationary spiral,” said Netanyahu, who began his sixth term as premier last month astride a religious-nationalist coalition government. “We must turn the wheel around now. We cannot wait until the budget discussions.”Among the measures he announced was subsidizing the price of gasoline, freezing increases in property tax and lowering expected hikes in the cost of electricity and water. But neither he nor Smotrich said where the supplementary funds would come from. Israel’s annual inflation reached 5.3% in November, its highest since October 2008, and the Bank of Israel projects the rate will dip to 3% by the end of 2023. Israel has an official annual target of 1% to 3%.Israel posted a budget surplus of 9.8 billion shekels ($2.8 billion) in 2022, or 0.6% of gross domestic product, its first annual surplus in decades, the Finance Ministry said. This followed deficits of 4.4% of GDP in 2021 and 11.3% in 2020. Its 2022 deficit target was 3.9% of GDP.The Manufacturers’ Association, which represents some 1,500 firms and 400,000 workers, said the government’s plan was “a first step in the right direction to lower the cost of living and increase economic growth.”(Reporeting by Ari Rabinovitch and Dan Williams; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) More