States Must Strengthen Oversight of Homeowners Insurance Rate Increases - Americans for Financial Reform State insurance commissioners and legislators play a critical role in determining the insurance premiums people pay for their home insurance.[1] Insurance companies have increased homeowners…

Did you know that in all but 3 states, insurers can use your credit score to determine what you pay for homeowners insurance? Your insurance commissioner or state legislature can stop this predatory industry behavior–in fact, it’s their job.

Trump Is Reverse Engineering The Great Recession Residential mortgage-backed securities are back. Subprime mortgages are up. Welcome to 2008 2.0.

“People should be very alarmed that we are trying to deregulate something that is a known problem in our financial system...It feels very much like we’re repeating a pattern in some ways.“ - Caroline Nagy, AFR Associate Director of Housing Policy www.levernews.com/trump-is-rev...

RENT STRIKE WIN

Yesterday, four months into their rent strike– the first in Raytown, MO history– Bowen Tower Tenant Union signed an agreement with their landlord. The agreement satisfies key demands and allows the union to de-escalate the strike by Feb 1.

some more congestion pricing Ws:

Broadway attendance: up 21%
Restaurant reservations: up 7%
Pedestrian traffic: up 4%
Retail sales: up $900M
Commercial leasing: up 61%
Subway crime: down 37%
Car crashes: down 50%
Honking complaints: down 69%

In 1985, a senior Reagan official declared: "We're getting out of the housing business. Period." The result? Millions of people forced into housing precarity and homelessness.

Now, history is repeating: the Trump administration plans to gut HUD, pouring gasoline on an already catastrophic crisis.

Governor Hochul should remove Eric Adams from office.

News Release: California Hands $500M Insurance Bailout Bill to Families & Homeowners - Americans for Financial Reform The California State Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara approved a $1 billion bailout of the state’s FAIR (Fair Access to Insurance Requirements) plan to help cover over 3,400 claims it has received ...

Here's our reaction to the CA FAIR plan bailout with a quote from @carolinenagy.bsky.social.

CA is basically asking insurers to split the $1b bill with the public.

Two things you might not realize though:

ourfinancialsecurity.org/2025/02/news...

It bears repeating and repeating ad nauseum: if a political party withholds the effort to earn votes and you use their inevitable loss as an excuse to scold strangers on the internet instead of holding that party accountable: You are a performative, sloganeering and politically incompetent rube.

A lot is really discouraging about the rise of fascism in the US. I feel particularly distressed at how difficult and unlikely a popular front between liberals and the left is, largely as a result of the horrible turn of liberalism this last year. 1/19 🧵

Cerberus, a private equity firm, buys a chain of hospitals, sells the land on which they sit, and charges them rent. The hospitals struggle and start cutting corners. Patients' care worsens, death rates climb. And Cerberus makes $790 million in profit.

Look for the Tenant Union Those caught in the crossfire of corporate landlords and financial engineering need a regulatory agenda to protect them.

In the next four years, tenant unions will deepen their organizing. They'll win safer homes, fairer leases, and local regulatory policies, all of which can build the blueprint for national change.

Great to write some on this and more w/ @taraghuveer.bsky.social in @theprospect.bsky.social

Elon Musk wants to ‘delete’ federal financial watchdog as ‘DOGE’ begins work “Delete CFPB,” Elon Musk, the billionaire tech executive running the “Department of Government Efficiency,” said in an early-morning post on X.

While billionaire industry tech, Elon Musk cries for
the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to be deleted, the CFPB continues to stand up for the little guy and stop industry that gouges us with junk fees, high prices, and unfair treatment #ProtectConsumers

www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Harris’s Gaza Policy Was a Disaster on Every Level Palestine may not have swung the election one way or another. But Democrats unquestionably paid a high price for their refusal to hold Israel accountable.

Clearly, Gaza alone does not explain Trump's sweeping victory. But the evidence shows that Harris’ failure to break with Biden’s policy came with a political cost—one that was higher than many had expected.
www.thenation.com/article/poli...

Why did so many New Yorkers vote for Donald Trump? YouTube video by Zohran Mamdani for NYC

Why did so many working class New Yorkers vote for Donald Trump last week — and even more not vote at all?

I went to Hillside Ave in Queens and Fordham Rd in the Bronx to find out. www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7Fc...

Inspiring: A Meta AI chatbot called "FungiFriend" got added to a mushroom forager Facebook group and immediately told members there it is safe to sauté a mushroom known to often contain deadly amounts of arsenic. Moderators say the bot was added automatically

www.404media.co/ai-chatbot-a...

Hi there! A lot of talk about how the Harris campaign/dems didn’t do enough on rents and affordable housing. Some of us have been screaming about this for awhile. My friends at @aforhj.bsky.social made this cool follow list if you want to talk housing justice! go.bsky.app/Br1s7ov

How Can We Reform Property Insurance to Adapt to Climate Change? Climate change is fueling more frequent and extreme disasters. Insurers are responding by dropping communities and raising premiums.

Climate change is creating an insurance crisis. In a new piece with @carolinenagy.bsky.social we describe why we're forming the new Equitable and Just Insurance Initiative to advocate reforms shelterforce.org/2024/10/25/h...

The hillbilly is from Greater Dayton

the best that any of us can hope for is to die free. rest easy, king.

Adams Operative Had Altercation at Randall’s Island Shelter Hours Before Fighting Guards at Touro Tim Pearson showed up with 100 cops, two drones and a helicopter, locking down the island and threatening to fire a shelter manager who followed the city’s rules by asking him to show a warrant.

NEW: Hours before a top operative for Mayor Eric Adams got into a physical altercation with migrant shelter guards on Tuesday after attempting to enter without identifying himself, he’d pulled a similar maneuver at another shelter according to a report.

Chess is a game about a powerful woman needing to protect a frail man with extremely limited capabilities

Private equity firms, corporate landlords fueling spike in rental housing costs in Jacksonville, UNF... Skyrocketing rents are one of the biggest complaints about housing in Jacksonville. Besides that, with so many moving to our area, there is also what the city is now calling a housing crisis.

"This is what we describe as the financialization of human shelter."

Photo of a discarded framed poster showing the night sky above Albany, NY on Feb 18 2017 with the caption "I'll always explore with you."

This weekend's sad curb find: guess they got sick of exploring with each other 💔