Personal Finance

John Carona's Payday Lending Reform Crashed into a Wall of Lobbyists Today

If you want an idea of the near stranglehold payday lenders have on the Texas Legislature, the Senate floor was the place to be today. That's where Senator John Carona watched as his payday lending bill was picked apart by colleagues, many of whom were taking calls from industry lobbyists as he spok ... More >>

Texas is Last in High School Graduation, First in Hazardous Waste, and Other Depressing Tidbits from a New Legislative Report

The Texas Legislative Study Group is a caucus of around 50 Democratic representatives from the Texas House, and they're real buzzkills. The LSG keeps a full-time staff of policy analysts around, who almost every year since 2003 have released a report called "Texas on the Brink," detailing all the mo ... More >>

Legislators and Lawmakers Have Killed Meaningful Payday Lending Reform

There remains a pressing need for meaningful, statewide regulation of payday lending in Texas, since the industry has shown a willingness and ability to skirt restrictions passed by Dallas, Austin, and other cities. Those reforms look like they are still at least a couple of years off. Despite high ... More >>

McKinney Sen. Ken Paxton's Tax-Credit Voucher Bill a Sneaky Way to Route Public Money to Private Religious Schools

The idea behind McKinney Senator Ken Paxton's proposed legislation really is pretty ingenious. The whole school-choice voucher idea -- essentially a guise to funnel public money to religious schools -- invariably runs afoul of constitutional challenges. So, lately, that movement has shifted its stra ... More >>

Dallas Unite! Throw off the Chains of Redneck Legislators, Payday Lenders, Etc.

Maybe Dallas has a shot at stepping out from under the redneck yoke of Austin after all. In today's news we see that a Dallas judge, Eric Moye, has tossed out a lawsuit by the usury industry in which payday lenders claimed the city had no right to protect its citizens if Austin didn't want them pro ... More >>

The American Lung Association Gives Texas an 'F', Calls it the "Tobacco Industry's Playground"

Smoking rates in the U.S. are plummeting. According to the CDC, there were three million fewer smokers in 2010 than in 2005. The factors contributing to this decline are are fairly obvious: improved educational efforts; cessation programs; higher cigarette taxes; tighter state and local anti-smoking ... More >>

Parkland's Future CEO Can't Heal Hospital Without Support Missing from Austin and D.C.

Warren Fagadau, a Dallas ophthalmologist who has been involved in health insurance reform efforts in Texas, has a piece on the op-ed page of The Dallas Morning News today about the qualities our public hospital in Dallas should look for in its ongoing search for a new chief executive officer. His vi ... More >>

DART is Mulling Domestic Partner Benefits, Thanks to a Former Employee's Petition

This summer, Andrew Moss, a former DART police officer, launched a petition urging the transit agency to offer domestic partner benefits. Moss had worked for DART until health problems forced him to step down in 2008. Though his husband continued to work there as a police officer, their marriage is ... More >>

JP Morgan Chase Killed Minister Then Evicted Wife, Lawsuit Claims

View Larger Map Harry Engel loved his home right up to the day it killed him. The retired minister had grown up as an orphan, so he took particular pride in the modest Grand Prairie house he had shared with wife Wanda for 22 years. In February 2010, the couple received a letter from JP Morgan Chas ... More >>

Last Night's Hail Storm Will Cost Insurance Companies Hundreds of Millions of Dollars

If you are a roof, a delicate glass sculpture or one of the cars stuck in the open because of the assholes who took shelter under one of the overpasses on Central, yesterday was not a good day. Days usually aren't when you're pelted with chunks of ice the size of baseballs. Or were they grapefruit-s ... More >>

Eat, Drink and Be Charitable For Once

Craig James Reveals Tax Records, Proves That Even In Bad Years He's Way Overpaid

Quick test: When you think Craig James, what comes to mind? A. SMU and New England Patriots football player and long-time sports announcer. B. Texan, father, husband. C. Who the hell is Craig James? D. Senate candidate and taxpayer. You're right! And today, James took his "plethora of experience" ... More >>

Citibank Drops Suit Against DA Craig Watkins, Who Will Agree Not to Sue Them Either

Last week was a bit embarrassing for Craig Watkins as his personal debt to Citibank became a public matter when The Dallas Morning News reported that he owed more than $15,000 in credit card bills, the latest in a history of financial whoopsies. The district attorney explained to Unfair Park that he ... More >>

Record Store Day Comes Early This Year as Record Stores Celebrate Black Friday

​If you're reading this blog, it's likely you frequent a record store, and there are several good ones in the area to choose from.  But, if you didn't realize that purchasing music online is a mild sin, and if your record store of choice is the iTunes store or Amazon.com, you might be out of ... More >>

Fixing the Trinity Levees: Don't Worry, Just Trust City Hall

Dear Corps of Engineers: Save the Fancy Talk and Just Tell Us If We Should Build an Ark

​All right, class, today our lesson is: "Logical Wormholes and Semantic Corkscrews: Translating the Language of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Into More or Less Plain English, or, You Know, Spanish. Whatever. Language How People Talk." But first an ironclad guarantee. This is not a homework ... More >>

Since Occupy Dallas Didn't Get Insurance Coverage, City to "Begin Enforcing Local Laws"

Photo by Jim SchutzeInside the Occupy Dallas "command center" at Pioneer Park today​Yet again, right in the middle of our Rangers-Tigers liveblog, the city sends a note concerning Occupy Dallas's occupation of Pioneer Park. Only, one night after giving the group its permit, the city's yanking it - ... More >>

More Unlicensed Drivers and Longer DMV Lines, All Slipped Into a ... School Finance Bill?

The East Dallas driver's license office on a recent Wednesday morning. Cozy!​Those state-lawmaker types are a shifty bunch, eh? During the state legislature's regular session, lawmakers debated a bill that would have required proof of citizenship or legal status for anyone applying for a new ... More >>

Feeling Horny?

Tiffany Derry Defends For-Profit Culinary Schools

​Dallas chef Tiffany Derry this week dove into the maelstrom surrounding financial assistance at for-profit colleges, arguing in an essay for The Hill that the government is threatening the culinary arts by withholding loans from students enrolled in career schools. The Department of Educatio ... More >>

Bridge Building

Craig Watkins's Legislative Wish List

​On the other side is a lengthy missive we just received from the Dallas County District Attorney's Office in which Craig Watkins outlines his to-do list for the new Legislative session. But you can probably guess what's top-of-the-pops with a D.A. seeking criminal system reforms: eyewitness ident ... More >>

Sneak a Peek at the Flood Map Presentation Being Given to Trinity River Property Owners

​As you may recall, the city sent word last month that it needed to meet with Trinity River property owners to discuss those revised Federal Emergency Management Agency flood maps, due to debut in February before the final ones are drawn up in December 2011 and go into effect in June 2012. West-si ... More >>

Is It Finally Curtains for the Trinity River Project?

Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson: The Latest In A Long Line Of Pols To Dance To The Mayor's Tune For The Trinity River Project.

Teaching DISD Students About Money -- How to Keep It, and How to Make It

​Over the weekend, New York Times personal finance writer Tara Siegel Bernard visited with Sunset High School's Mathew Frost, an 11th and 12th grade American history and economics teacher giving his students a real-world look at how to balance the books. In other words, he's teaching to the actual ... More >>

What's Not Good for Morale? Money Missing from the Dallas PD's Employee Morale Fund.

​For me, a good City Hall audit report is better reading than a John Grisham novel. You just have to know how to read it (upside down, holding it up to the mirror, between the lines). Today's offering is the City Auditor's report on the police department's Employee Morale Fund, for which the sub-h ... More >>

As City Hall Sets "The 'Price' of Dallas Government," a Very Big Budget Deficit Awaits

At Wednesday's Dallas City Council briefing, there will be yet another Budget Workshop -- the fourth of many in advance of the September 23 due date for next fiscal year's budget. In the doc prepared for the council, City Manager Mary Suhm describes the process of "Setting the 'Price' of Dallas Gov ... More >>

What Does a Credit Report Have to Do With Fighting Crime?

Dallas Observer's Parent Company Announces Pay Cuts and Layoffs

Twice today I've been asked about several posts on The Latest Word, one of our sister blogs out of Denver, referring to layoffs and pay cuts taking place throughout the Village Voice Media chain. The Dallas Observer, of course, is among the 15 papers in the chain, formerly known as New Times Inc.Spe ... More >>

Fannie Mae CEO "Highly Embarrassed" By Dallas Office's Golf Outing

In early November, KTVT-Channel 11 busted 14 Dallas Fannie Mae employees for teeing off at the Cowboys Golf Club in Grapevine -- 22 days after the feds took over Fannie Mae, whoops. Said the CBS affiliate, taxpayers coughed up $6,279.26 for the golf outing, which "outraged" Rep. Jeb Hensarling. So m ... More >>

It’s Friday! Time for, um, Foreclosure Talk?

Dallas to Lose $4 Billion in 2008? Man, That Sounds Bad.

Yes, Carlos, Sure, They're Out to Get You

Charity Begins at the Home Page of Charity Navigator, Far As We're Concerned

Charity Cases

Good ways to spend some money. Just get a receipt for your taxes.

Space is the Place

Man to Man

Poor and Pitiful

a

Doris Henson

Tuesday, March 15, at Hailey's

Best Girlie Explosion

Talulah Belle

To Save Cash

Best Mark Cuban Decision

Establishing the Fallen Patriot Fund

Mall Rats

Thieves stole Ronnie Wilson's name, and now she's having an identity crisis

My two sons?

Former school trustee Roberto Medrano is sued for child support

This old chair

Oak Cliff buys into rent-to-own antiques

An old concept

Oak Cliff shop offers a new take on an antique idea

Tales From The Crypt

Fort Worth's famous undertaker, the Rev. Gregory Spencer, has buried a lot of friends-- and made a lot of enemies. Now he claims someone wants him six feet under

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