Personal Finance

Texas Cities Follow Dallas' Lead and Stand Up to Payday Lenders. Is the State Next?

In Dallas, the political atmosphere for payday lending reform is optimistic. After three years of ordinances limiting lending practices, the local movement has spread to 17 other cities across the state. Today, Dallas City Councilman Jerry Allen went before the Amarillo City Council to try and recru ... More >>

3,000 Texans Might Die Without Medicaid Expansion, Study Says

The folly of Texas Governor Rick Perry's decision to opt out of Obamacare's Medicaid expansion has been well-documented. Billions in federal funds are off the table. More than a million poor adults won't have access to health coverage. Texas businesses will wind up paying an estimated $400 million i ... More >>

Payday Lenders Are Using Texas Prosecutors to Collect Their Bad Debts

The payday lending industry in Texas has managed to wrap its tentacles around just about every level of government there is, repeatedly killing any move toward meaningful regulation on the part of the state legislature, skirting rules set up by municipalities, Dallas included, aimed at curbing its w ... More >>

Barack Obama, Rick Perry Butt Heads During President's Whirlwind Trip to Dallas

President Barack Obama was on the ground in Dallas for all of four hours on Wednesday. It would have been closer to five, but his departure from D.C. was delayed by an hour after bomb-sniffing dog reacted to what turned out to be anti-freeze in a vehicle parked near the White House. From Love Field ... More >>

Barack Obama Will Visit Dallas' Temple Emanu-El Wednesday to Praise Obamacare Volunteers

Give Barack Obama some credit. Rather than simply barricade himself inside the mansions of a pair of elite lawyers to gladhand with deep-pocketed Democratic donors, as was the initial plan for his trip to Dallas this week, and rather than holing himself in some White House bunker and pray that the " ... More >>

Nevada Hill of Bludded Head has Cancer and, Like Most Artists, No Health Insurance

As Nevada Hill paints a large mural on the eastern wall of Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios, a giant heart in the middle whose many arteries extend all around it and each connect to its own building, he is coated in sun screen and flecks of paint, and he is wearing a sort of tan sun hat with a brim t ... More >>

Medical City is Dallas' Most Expensive Hospital

It's always been nearly impossible to compare prices between hospitals. For one, most people who find themselves in an emergency room don't have the leisure to shop around. Even if they do, where are they going to turn? Healthcare providers don't typically put their prices on billboards. The opacity ... More >>

Dallas Interfaith Group to State Lawmakers: Expand Medicaid Now

Dallas Area Interfaith held a news conference this morning at Temple Emanu-El, where more than a dozen faith leaders from the Dallas area gathered to support Medicaid expansion. Since Friday, 60 clergy members from Catholic, Protestant and Jewish congregations have signed a letter calling on state l ... More >>

Exclusive Premiere: The new Single from Tunk, Quietly One of the City's Best Rappers

Kevin "Tunk" Arradondo is not afraid to tell you that he's been broke all of this life, and on his latest mixtape, Direct Deposit, he does many times. "I'm not tryin to sit here and lie on the record. Sooner or later that can be your downfall," says the 23 year old Midlothian resident, "I'm the ba ... More >>

New Report Details the Incredible Stupidity of Texas' Rejection of Medicaid Expansion

In July, Governor Rick Perry sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explaining why the state of Texas would not be taking part in the federal government's plans to expand Medicaid. Such an expansion would "enlarge a broken system that is already financially unsustain ... More >>

A Dallas County Community College Official Was Fired for Giving Scholarships to Herself

When Minnie K. Patton wrote her will, she left a portion of her estate to the Dallas County Community College District Foundation to create a scholarship in her name. She'd grown up poor and uneducated in rural Oklahoma and wanted to give students the shot at upward mobility that she wouldn't have h ... More >>

Payday Lenders Have Found a Big Loophole in State and Local Regulation

A few weeks ago, the Texas Observer's Forrest Wilder went on a journalistic mission to a Cash Store outlet near his home in Austin. His aim, as he describes it, was to see what it was like to take out a payday loan in Texas, particularly in the wake of stronger regulations that Austin recently put i ... More >>

As Sandy's Tab Comes Due, It's Time to Rethink Flood Insurance Everywhere (Including Dallas)

Two experts from the Monterrey Institute of International Studies have an op-ed piece in The New York Times this morning advocating the abandonment of the National Flood Insurance Program, which is about to stick us taxpayers for $57 billion in rebuilding costs from Hurricane Sandy. If the experts w ... More >>

More Than 300,000 People in Dallas County Would Get Health Insurance Under Obamacare, But Not In Rick Perry's Texas

Some six million Texans are one health emergency away from financial ruin, and the state of affairs in Dallas County isn't any better. Nearly 30 percent of its residents are uninsured. That's 672,681 of our neighbors whom the health insurance markets have excluded, according to the latest U.S. Cen ... More >>

Time For Ron Washington to Stop Shilling For Ace Cash Express

If you watch a Rangers game on TV for more than about five minutes, you're bound to encounter manager Ron Washington telling you wonderful things about Ace Cash Express. If you can ignore the glare from Washington's shiny pate -- he often appears sans baseball cap, even though he is a man who benefi ... More >>

Report: Don't Major in the Humanities, You Broke Idiot

A new report submitted to the Texas Legislature says that Texans who earn their bachelor's degrees in the humanities have higher levels of debt and lower earning potential than people who get degrees in math and science-related fields. In 2010, the majors with the highest rates of unemployment were ... More >>

Paul Ryan Pick Proves They Don't Make Rich People Like They Used To

What country is this? Have I been on some kind of horrendous toot, and did I sleep for a month, and did I wake up in the wrong country? All weekend long on my TV set I kept seeing Paul Ryan, the right-wing social Darwinist cheese-head, and they said he was a candidate for vice president of the Unite ... More >>

Barbarians in the Ivory Tower

America's for-profit colleges offer education only a con man (or a congressman) could love.

For-Profit Colleges Only a Con Man Could Love

Barbarians in the Ivory Tower

Perry Says NO-bamacare for Texas

This morning, in a move about as surprising as the sun rising, Governor Rick Perry came out with guns blazing against the Affordable Health Care Act, recently approved (mostly) by the U.S. Supreme Court. The act's expanded Medicaid coverage for the poor will not be implemented in Perry's state, de ... More >>

Texas Has More Uninsured Veterans Than Any Other State. So That's Lovely.

The difficulties faced by military veterans returning home, from elevated divorce and suicide rates to a harsh job market, have been well documented. Turns out, many of them also don't have health coverage. According to a study released last week by the Urban Institute, 10 percent of veterans lac ... More >>

Dallas City Hall Wants to Create Nonprofit to Help Uplift Education Sell Bonds for Expansion

​Speaking of Uplift Education and its planned expansion into Deep Ellum ...There's an intriguing item that just appeared on the Dallas City Council's consent addendum for next week's meeting, posted here. According to the doc, the city wants to create a nonprofit called the City of Dallas Educatio ... More >>

City Hall Tells Dallas Occupiers to Get Insurance or Else. They're Leaning Toward "Or Else."

​At 1:20 this morning Boston police stormed an Occupy encampment in Boston Greenway park, hauled off more than 100 protesters in cable-tie cuffs and tore down their tents. Everybody in the Occupy Dallas encampment I talked to at about noon today was aware of what just happened in Boston. The ... More >>

Uptick in Crimes Against Elderly, Payday Lenders Tarnish Some Locals' Golden Years

Via.​A disheartening report by the Dallas Police Department shows that crimes against senior citizens have increased in the past year, with rates for July 2011 15 percent higher than during the same time last year. Lieutenant Herbert Ashford presented the numbers at this morning's Senior Affai ... More >>

Mayor Dwaine Caraway Refers to Mike Rawlings As "Payday Loan King" in New Radio Ad

Photo by Sam MertenCaraway and Natinsky at the candidate's endorsement press conference last month​Moments ago, during Robert Ashley's show on KHVN-AM, an ad ran attacking mayoral candidate Mike Rawlings and his ties to Ace Cash Express -- though it never mentions Rawlings by name. The speaker: no ... More >>

Rawlings Responds to Caraway's "Payday Loan King" Ads, Discusses Tenure on Lender's Board

Photo by Mark GrahamMike Rawlings​Mike Rawlings called this evening to discuss, sort of, those ads in which Mayor Dwaine Caraway blasts the mayoral candidate as the "Payday Loan King," a reference to Rawlings's six-year stint on the board of directors of Ace Cash Express -- the very sort of high-i ... More >>

New Anti-Poverty Coalition to Demand Dallas City Hall Zone Payday Lenders Out of Business

​Been trying to reach council member Jerry Allen ever since yesterday; no luck so far. But we know where he'll be at 3 today: in the Flag Room at Dallas City Hall, standing beside Dr. Frederick Haynes and Rev. Gerald Britt at an anti-payday lender press conference on behalf of the Anti-Poverty Coa ... More >>

Dallas-Fort Worth, Deep in Credit Card Debt

​Late Wednesday, we received in the in-box this list of 25 cities ranked by the average amount of credit-card debt its residents carryin their back pockets. At the top of the pops was San Antonio with $5,177, but, as you can see, Dallas wasn't far behind at No. 5; says credit-reporting agency Expe ... More >>

What This Town Needs is Some Good Ward Heelers.

Four Months After Hubbie Pleaded Guilty to Tax Evasion, Realtor Eleanor Sheets Joins In

Eleanor Mowery Sheets and husband Nicky​Again, this is Candy Evans's beat -- why, just today she noted over on D's DallasDirt that the former manse of Eleanor and Nicky Sheets is selling at half off the original asking price after it failed to move at an IRS auction in February. Nevertheless, this ... More >>

Mount Righteous

Mount Righteous (Self-released)

Dallas May Get Soaked by Soaring Insurance Premiums if the City Keeps Dawdling on Fixing the Levees

Premium Content: While We Argue Over a Word, a Risk Still Runs Through the City

George Gimarc sent us this photo. Taken in April 1957.​Got a little e-mail debate going with Frank Librio, the spokesman for the city of Dallas, which I thought I should share with the Friends of Unfair Park. Always good to get a second opinion. Maybe people will agree with Frank that I have been ... More >>

New Federal Program Aims to Help Student Debtors, But Is it Too Late?

​DeSoto resident Pamela Bradley, who once worked for the city of Dallas, feels cheated by the education system. She was raised to believe that education leads to better jobs, so she got a master's degree and started a Ph.D. program. But now Bradley finds herself in this disheartening position ... More >>

Debt Collectors Consider Trading "Knee-Breaking" Techniques for "Empathy Training"

Hal Samples Craig Cunningham​Craig Cunningham of Dallas has an interesting way of dealing with debt collectors: He sues them, as documented in this week's paper version of Unfair Park. While only a small number of debtors file such lawsuits, the debt collection industry isn't waiting for su ... More >>

Better Off Deadbeat: Craig Cunningham Has a Simple Solution for Getting Bill Collectors Off His Back. He Sues Them.

Crime-Ridden Apartments, Credit Reports and Cops

If you haven't carefully checked the fine print in the city's proposed high-crime apartment ordinance, which the Dallas City Council will take up today, you might have missed this little gem: Apartment owners whose properties become too crime-ridden according to the city's calculations will be requi ... More >>

Dear "Delusional" in Dallas ...

Hey, Kids, George Michael and Kenny Goss Are Being Very Generous

This shirt's available from the Goss-Michael Foundation online boutique. Which means it's time to ditch this tee. George Michael and Kenny Goss want to give you $5,000. If, that is, you're a "high school graduating seniors interested in pursuing a college education in music or visual arts." Today, t ... More >>

Supreme Court Will Let Dallas Man's 401(k) Lawsuit Move Forward

This morning, the Supreme Court of the United States heard arguments in the case James LaRue v. DeWolff, Boberg & Assoc., Inc., et al., which probably means nothing to you. Unless, that is, you're invested in your company's 401(k) plan, in which case, this Dallas-based case is plenty interesting. B ... More >>

Maxed Out: Or, Give the Guy Some Credit

Former Dallasite James Scurlock is becoming the Upton Sinclair of the credit-card industry. It was exactly one year ago that James Scurlock debuted his documentary Maxed Out, about the suffocating crush of credit-card debt, at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin. Since then he's written a ... More >>

Mo' Money, No Problems

Eminem, Russell Simmons, Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and Benjamin Chavis got together at the 2003 Hip-Hop Summit in Detroit Rock City. Now Simmons and Chavis are bringing the show back to another D-town...uh, Denton. If you consider eating Ramen and drinking 75-cent PBRs to be the ultimate acts o ... More >>

The Big Squeeze

Thinking about taking out a payday loan? Think again, sucker.

Flipped Out

Troubling questions about real estate transactions dog a former Cowboy's business

Grave Robbers

Even in the great beyond, no one is safe from identity theft

House of Cards

Enron's collapse may have been engineered from the top, but low-level employees played parts, too

Best Daily Newspaper Columnist

Scott Burns, personal finance columnist, The Dallas Morning News

Buzz

Silence is not golden; Feed the sharks

Hard knocks

A school's closing leaves a Dallas woman $10,000 in debt for a worthless education

Congressional hopeful Jerry Frankel has ideas, brains, and GUTS.

Dick Armey will eat his lunch.