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All eyes were on the jobs report last week and it was better than anticipated. The unemployment rate, which analysts expected to inch up a bit, actually declined from 8.9 percent to 8.8 percent, a two-year low, as employers added 216,000 jobs for the month.

Financial industry regulators have finalized the risk retention “skin-in-the-game” requirements for mortgage lenders, and industry executives, for the most part, are not happy with the proposed rules unveiled in early April.

Industry efforts to block the cap on debit card interchange fees are intensifying as the deadline for implementing that new rule nears. 

AARP is suing the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), challenging an agency policy that requires the surviving spouse of a reverse mortgage borrower to repay the loan in order to continue living in the home.

The best-laid plans don’t always work out exactly as anticipated. The tax cut Congress approved last year is a case in point. The Obama Administration had expected the $66.3 billion reduction in payroll taxes to fuel an increase in consumer spending, providing an additional boost to an economy that has been improving steadily, but too slowly to make much of a dent in the unemployment rate.

Since Congress enacted the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation, financial institutions have been trying to soften some of its sharper edges.

Four years of steadily declining home prices have made home ownership more affordable than at any time since the housing boom began in 2003.

In “Murder on the Orient Express,” one of Agatha Christie’s most famous mysteries, the answer to “who dunnit” turned out to be “everyone.”  All of the potential suspects stabbed the despicable victim so that no single murderer could be blamed.

A Massachusetts court has delivered a ruling that mortgage lenders all over the country have feared.  The Supreme Judicial Court (SJC), the state’s highest court, invalidated two foreclosures, finding that the lenders involved - Wells Fargo and US Bancorp - had not proven that they held the mortgages when the foreclosures were initiated. 

 It’s time for New Year’s resolutions and for economic forecasts, which we’ve resolved not to make. But we’ve compiled a bunch of them so you can see what others are predicting, and they are all over the lot – pessimism, optimism, relief, uncertainty, great and not-so-great expectations - you’ll almost certainly find a forecast to support whatever expectations, hopes, or fears, you have for the coming year.

Two customer satisfaction surveys convey different messages to credit unions.  One sends accolades while the other sounds a cautionary note.