Like a spirit from beyond the grave, bankrupt Sharper Image Corp. is back and searching for its former gift card holders. But this is a benevolent ghost: Its mission is to start the process of finding and reimbursing them.
Regulators want the nation's big banks to reduce what borrowers owe on underwater mortgages, but they're still focused on solutions that rely on banks to voluntarily do the right thing. But we've already seen that won't work, and history shows what will -- giving bankruptcy judges back the right to cram down mortgages.
These payments fell in 2009 for first time in the U.S. in more than three decades, and while the official government report for fiscal 2010 won't be out for months, it's likely that it, too, saw that downward trend continue. Stubbornly high unemployment is the primary culprit.
In another bit of good economic news, the list of U.S. business bankruptcies will likely get shorter, and probably less distinguished, in 2011, just as it did this year. Still, several factors beyond an improving economy are also at play here.
U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Martin Glenn denied Wells Fargo's request for permission to foreclose on Tandala Mims's house in the Bronx for a second time on Thursday because he still wasn't satisfied that Wells -- as opposed to some other bank -- had the right to do so.
That would be in California, Texas and 25 other states where the lender doesn't have to go to court to foreclose. Except in rare instances, lenders can use fraudulent paperwork with impunity in those states. A closer look at California and Texas shows that's indeed happening.
