? robert clifford figured it out. weimar him for his remark where action but what to figure up next. he has supported the national parks, national resources is one of the most formalist conservationists. , entertainingisma us more than half a century. not. lake.ner in salt young, no plans to slow down.

it was the last straw, we should never tangled with cummings. crashes.pirates, plane volcanoes. something happens with tom hanks. fillingcannot resist where he wants to take us anyways has been ask in witness and every man who fell in love and aeg ryan three times volleyball when you beer best .riend tom says he saw ordinary guys at the right time.

cancer, the veterans would space expiration amateur this is given his best roles. he is a good man. thousands of cubans seek education and wonder if he was a 15-year-old whose life changed when he enrolled in miami-dade college. that went to a bachelors degree and a phd. he did go to corporate america over back. there were more stories. as miami-dade's president since

1995, he has built a one of our nations when a most diverse student bodies. 165,000 students. the world's preeminent education leaders, thinking out-of-the-box, sporting students. combining the money that we are only as great as the doors we open. those of the same american dream. filed the lawsuit to recover land, she said i just want to give people -- give justice to people who did not have it. quest, resources, it was not about special treatment. it was the wood treatment.

she fought forr 15 years, seven trials and seven appearances all the losses traveled the country some 40 weeks a year. the graduate of the run room proud daughter. reached a historic victory for all native americans. a force of will and believe that truth will win out. reminding us that fighting for what is right is always true. criticournalist, every knows the phrase. a vast wasteland. preferredrds that are -- public interest.

that has been the heartbeat. advocating for residents of public housing, a governor, supreme court justice. sec.ng the the first communication gps, hee, eventually predicted it would be more important than the moon landing. this will launch ideas and ideas last longer than people. know, the only one that was present with michelle. [laughter] surprise when we someone of our bosses at the movie theater. do the right thing. he has been vital to my personal interest.

finally, we honor the all-time great. a game of baseball of signature sounds. the crack of the bat. the crowd singing in the seventh inning stretch and you have the voice of vince scully. most fans listen on the cannot be at the ball are. generations brother radios into the stands because they want to miss one of vin's stories. most chat about the action. they talk just with us. dsince jackie robinson started as a grace, introduced to the players who merited the improbable year, the impossible

aerobics. many art about the dishonor, are you sure? thatd to inform them americans of all ages, you are an old friend. i thought about him which would thought weool but i should not do that. next -- [laughter] here is how great cream on dual to buy was -- he spent a year dominating college best. ncaa bans dunk.

didn't say it was about kareem, but it was. making it harder just for you. you are really good. [laughter] yet, despite the rule change, it was the most unstoppable force. a title he held for more than two decades, the nba finals and bb and 14 years of our. surprisingly similar looking copilot one said in their point -- we have some great actors here. he did it all.

kareem andy honor the skyhook, he stood up with his muslim faith when it was uneasy or popular. it was comfortable sparring with bruce lee or writing extraordinary eloquence about patriot. he is one-of-a-kind. in american that has our freedoms and highest aspirations. when he was five years old, daily cut off his big toe with one acts. back then, his handle would not work. differently, gone air jordan's may have not taken place. you don't want to buy a shoe with like one toe missing.

seen thater have against the lakers or gutting it out and the flu game or hit the shot three different times over georgetown, you love. horse or larry bird in lift up the dream team. mj is more than just those moments, more than just those players. he is more than just a logo, more than an internet meme. more than just the charitable donor. you calla reason

somebody to market jordan of. michael jordan of neurosurgery nebraska orrson of michael jordan of alaska. they know what you are talking about because michael jordan is the michael jordan of greatness. he is the definition of somebody so good at what they do. that everybody recognizes. that is pretty rare. ross singingiana and dancing for family friends. she was one of to pass it. later, the boosting housing robinson putokey them in front of berry gordy and the rest was met with music history.

the supremes had a permanent .oice on the american sandra grace and glamour and filled the stages that shape the sound motel. she raised five kids, somehow acting.inations are the young singers that have inspired by her to the audiences that the cannot get enough her, diana ross has influence. cave on highway nine. of theto make sense mysteries that dotted his

.ometown for decades, bruce springsteen brought us all along on a journey consumed with the bargains between ambition and injustice and pain. this of glories that have been scattered. the craft ofone of a record that's in a like the last record on earth. one glorious notaries and the apocalypse. very restless kid in america was given a story. himself, he about told us about everybody else. still workers in young's down. one in the usa. sick and marginalize the streets of the left you. the 500 scaring the weight of a resilient nation on the rise.

a soldier reckoning with them in iraq. in themunity not down wrecking ball. all of us with our fault and feelings bound together by one defiant reckless training ball through the land of broken dreams. these are anthems of our america. the hallmark of a rock 'n roll thatbruce springsteen ones is the narrative is bigger than a jerseyd for decades bruce springsteen has been caring it and asking us what is .he work for us to do

i am the president, he is the loss. working. i thought twice about giving him a metal and he remains in prison of rock 'n roll years to come. this is like a really good class. , give it upentleman for the recipients of the 2016 medal of freedom. [applause]

>> we have to give medals. we are going to have my military aid read the citations. each one of them will come up and receive medals and then we will rep of the program, ok. >> kareem abdul-jabbar. [applause] [laughter] >> an iconoclast law player with his all-around play and signature skyhook. he is a 19 time all-star, six-time world champion illini scorer in nba has history.

he advocated for civil rights, cancer research and social justice. in doing so, he leaves a towering justice of faith. a legacy not only ace on his strengths but also on the sharpness of his mind. [applause] >> accepting on behalf of his mother.

>> she spent her life defying the odds and working the behalf of her people. she was told she was not people of understanding, so she mastered the field and used her a historicto champion settlement and many other tribes. tenacious spirit lives on on the thousands of people and hundreds of drive for whom she thought and all those that it is never too late to right the wrongs of the past and shape a better future. [applause]

>> ellen degeneres. [applause] [laughter] in a career, on generous has lifted our careers. in every role, she reminds us to be kind to everyone on and you treat people what people want to be treated. she has helped change the hearts and minds of millions americans, accelerating our drive towards you already. again and again, a leading generou -- ellen degeneres can make a world more fun, more open so long as we keep swimming. [applause]

>> robert de niro. [applause] [laughter] >> for over 50 years,r robert de niro ha delivered the most memorable performances cementing his ways as one of the most gifted actors. from godfather part ii and deer hunter, his workers legendary. he embodies his character, creating rich new want portraits

the roof off the hearts of the human experience. regardless of john wright or era, robert de niro demonstrates a for a new skill that may some one of america's most revered and influential artists. [applause] l. garwin.a when of the most renowned minds of her mind, he has always answered the call for society's most challenging problems. he has defense and science

technologies that underscore the urgency of humanity. during his advice republican and .emocratic administrations , he hasributions contributed not only to security and prosperity much of the quality of life for people all over the world. [applause] >> william the iii and melinda gates. [applause] few people at the profound

impact of hill and melinda gates. they have very shouldn't have the most fortunate among us have a responsibility of users resources to tackle the world's greatest challenges. from helping women and girls lift themselves out of poverty to empowering across america, they are transformed countless lives. they will continue to inspire with their inpatient optimism that together we can we make the world as it should be. [applause]

>> frank gehry. [applause] >> never limited by conventional material, frank carries bold construction shows us the producing and wonder. the creative mind from an early age, he be in his career by imagining homes from scrap material, . since then, his work has a balance between question now any resulting in some of the most iconic buildings. from his pioneering use to technology to the dozens of all inspiring site to his public service as a citizen artist

through his work answer on arts, frank kerry is an exemplary scholar. [applause] >> margaret hamilton. [applause] she defined a new form of software engineering and had a new system. largechitecture led to leaves for humankind. she broke barriers intending her

new software business. revolutionizing industry and cause women to dissipate and stem fields. her love of innovation was the source code of the american spirit. virginia's inspired generations. [applause] >> thomas j hanks. throughout a distinguished career, he revealed the

character of america as well as ,is own betraying world heroes should captain, young man growing up to and dozens of others. he has loved us to see ourselves not only as we are we aspire to be. he is on another satirizes of nation, all to think big and believe and inspire a new generation of young people to reach for the sky. [applause] >> gemma murray accepting on

race murray. [applause] child who loved the suddenly along fox, grace murray hopper found her calling. a phd from yale chemistry certain the aim being behind one of the first row grammars. code, shethe queen of may it practicable and invented the first translator. amazing grace was committed to mckinley which of commuter programming universal. today, the possibility she inspired generations of young people. [applause]

>> michael j. jordan. [applause] [laughter] >> password a drive to compete, including six nba championships, five m.v.p. awards and two gold medals, michael jordan is a synonym for excellence. redefining the game. making him a global superstar that impacts basketball and shaped our culture. from chapel hill, chicago, and the owners suite, he has

inspired millions of americans. [applause] y. lin. boldly challenging our understanding of the world, her designs have brought people together in spirits of remembrance, and humility. the manipulation of natural terrain topography inspires us

to bridge our differences and recognize the gravity of our collective existence. her pieces have changed the landscape of our country. never more profoundly than with her tribute to the americans who fell in vietnam, by cutting a wound into the earth to create a sacred place of healing in our nation's capital. [applause] lorne michaels. [applause] one of the most transformative entertainment figures of our time, he followed his dreams to new york where he created a

brought modernt comedy to homes around the world. under his command as executive producer, "saturday night live" has reflected and shapes critical elements of our cultural, political, and that should -- and national life. us laugh, challenging us to think, and raising the bar for those who follow. as one of his characters would say, isn't that special? [applause] newton n. minow. [applause]

as a soldier, counsel to the governor of illinois, chairman of the fcc, and law clerk to the chief justice of the supreme court, his career has been defined by his devotion to others. committed to his family, the law, and the american people, his dedication to serving and empowering the public is reflected in his efforts to make sure that media creates opportunity for all. challenging the media to better serve their viewed errors -- --wers come has transferred transform telecommunications and its role and our society. [applause]

eduardo padron. [applause] as a teenage refugee, he came to the united states to pursue the american dream and has spent his life making that dream real for others. andthoughtful leadership commitment to education have transformed miami-dade college into one of the premier institutions around the country. his lasting influence prove that success need not be determined by our background, but by our dedication to others, our passion for creating an america that is as -- inclusive as it is prosperous. [applause]

robert redford. [applause] robert redford has captivated audiences from both sides of the camera through entertaining motion pictures that explore vital social, political, and historical themes. his advocacy on behalf of preserving our environment will prove an interim legacy as will his films, as will his support for independent filmmakers. his art and activism continue to shake our nation's heritage, inspiring millions to laugh, cry, think, and change. [applause]

diana ross. [applause] a daughter -- [laughter] a daughter of detroit, diana ross helped greet the sound of motor on -- motown. to a solo that career, she is influenced generations of young artists and shaved our musical landscape. in addition to a lifetime achievement award, diana ross has distinguished herself as an

actor, earning an oscar nomination. outlets, 25 unforgettable hit singles, and live performances they continue to captivate audiences, diana ross still reigns supreme. [applause] next up, vin scully. [applause]

with a voice that transcended a sport and transformed a profession, he narrated america's pastime. known as the soundtrack of some, he found time to tedious about life and love while chronicling routine plays and historic her experience in victory and defeat, his account reverberated through the bleachers, across the airwaves, and into our homes. he is an american treasure and blood storyteller, and our country's gratitude for vin scully is as profound as his love for the game. [applause]

bruce f. springsteen. [applause] as a songwriter, humanitarian, and roll rock laureate, bruce springsteen is quite simply the boss. two stories about ordinary people, from vietnam very veterans to steelworkers, his songs captured the american experience. bruce springsteen leaves everything onstage in performances that have rocked audiences, with end of the and honesty. he holds us up as americans who we are, as human beings trying to do the right thing. there is a place for everyone in bruce springsteen's america.

[applause] >> bruce! [applause] sicily tyson. tyson.ly hersey -- 460 years, she has enlightened us with her characters and calls to conscious ability and hope. her achievements as an actor,

devotion to her faith, and commitment to advancing equality for all americans, especially women of color, have touched audiences for multiple generations. from the autobiography of miss jane pittman to sounder to the trip to bountiful, her performances lemonade -- illuminate the possibilities of america. [applause] [cheers] president obama: so just on a

part of thee, reason that these events are so special to me is because everybody on this stage has touched me in a very powerful theynal way, in ways probably could not imagine. whether it was having been orpired by a song or a game or a monumentilm or in the case of someone introducing me to michelle, these are folks who have helped make me who i am and think about itpresidency,, also makes special is this is america.

and it is useful when you think about this incredible collection of people to realize -- incredible selection of people to realize that this is what makes us the greatest nation on earth, not because of what we -- [applause] president obama: not because of our differences, but because in our difference, we find something common to share. and what a glorious thing that is, what a great gift that is to america. so i want all of you to enjoy the wonderful reception that will be taking place afterwards. michelle and i have to get back to work, unfortunately, what i hear the food is pretty good. and would like all of you to give one big rousing round of honoreesto our 2016

for the presidential medal of freedom. applause]d [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> the final ceremony of president obama's administration. he has awarded more medals of freedom than any other president. we will show this again at 8:00 p.m. eastern. president-elect donald trump had an on the record lunch with reporterswe will show this agaik

times." thenewspaper led with comments on climate change, with trump saying he would keep an open mind whether to pull out of the international agreement. mr. trump previously said he would withdraw from the agreement. some of our featured programs thursday on c-span. ben sass on american values. >> there is a civic mindedness in american history, but it is not compelled by the government. >> at noon, former senator tom harkin. >> for everything from monster 1420burgers with

calories to 20-ounce coke's and 15 teaspoons of sure, an epidemic of childhood obesity. at 3:30, the evolution of the online encyclopedia and the challenge of providing global access to information. >> there is a small community there, tend really active users, 20 to 30 they know elizabeth, and they start thinking of themselves at community. >> and the effort to repair and restore the capitol dome. reflects ona kagan her life and career. justice kagan: it also taught me a seriouss like to be historian and to sit in archives all day every day, and i realized it was not for me. >> followed by justice clarence

thomas at 9:00. $2genus is not putting a idea in a $20 sentence. 10:00, at a ceremony in the white house, president obama will present the medal of freedom, the highest civilian award, to 21 recipients . c-span.org,pan and or listen on the free c-span radio act. -- app. a look at that and bankruptcy. we will hear about the criminalization of consumer debt, credit report, debt collections, and the stigma of filing for bankruptcy. duke university in durham, north carolina hosted the event.

it is about an hour and a half. ms. johnson: i am creola johnson and i'm the moderator for this panel. i want to thank duke in the journal for contemporary law by having us. i want to thank all the students and everybody involved in this, especially jim hawkins. our panel today is about the aftermath of being indebted. our copanelists are richard hynes from uva and michael sousa. and so we are each going to take 15 minutes. i will go first with the most extreme consequence of the aftermath of being indebted and that is the consumer data criminalization. i came across this topic after years of doing research and finding all sorts of stories about various consumers been arrested or threatened with arrest when they couldn't pay their debt.

i have a paper coming out where i talk about two forms of consumer data criminalization and those two forms of criminalization are terrorized consumers with threats of arrest, accusing them of having committed a crime. the second is exploitation of existing criminal law to accuse consumers of crimes to have them arrested or have been arrested. last is the misuse of civil contempt. i'll start the last nine in our -- last form. a person got a payday loan in missouri from a place called sunshine, and her sunshine turned into darkness after she got this payday loan. she defaulted. the creditor got a default adjustment. the lawyer for the payday lender went through the paperwork for her to appear for organization

after it was used to get a civil contempt order. she was eventually arrested. the single mother of a toddler ended up spending three days in jail before her mother could borrow $1250 necessary to get her out of jail. i call this the misuse of civil contempt process and if they can end the first rule is not to call it the debtor's prison and to have that this is misuse is because first of all this is my payday lending, to land to people who don't have money. we have got years of data about the democrats is -- demographics of people who get payday loans.

the people who get payday loans. these are folks that have lower incomes, less educated, less likely saving and therefore the idea that the purpose of which is to discover large extent assets. the idea that there's nonexempt asset is just ridiculous given their business model and the demographics of the people with payday loans and other forms of high-cost credit such as car title loan. this is actually extortion. the criminalize or needs to be charged with a cry, which is to force areat person to hand over money or other property. most have identified several threat that constitute extortion. it's not like mafia with a gun. we have a whole host of things that constitute extortion. in california and in many states is to accuse aad person or relative or family member of the person of a crime in order to get money or the property from them.

again, to accuse a person of a crime or cause criminal charges to be instituted against that person. that is extortion. calledi has a statute stealing by coercion is accusing of a person of a crime. i want to start with a case, but this case you may have seen that got press. this is a guy that reduced -- called youwebsite got posted. ex-lovers could post photos and other negative information about the person and then if the and if the person wanted to get the content removed, they had to pay a fee to get that naked photos and other negative information removed. severals charged with crimes including a -- including extortion, and was convicted. he appealed on several grounds including that he did not direct any contact.

he only responded to messages and how to get negative information removed. he never initiated contact and then his response was just perfunctory, paid his fee, your photos will get removed. he never made any threats. he argued he had not committed the crime of extortion. so teasing this out further, as we unfold the argument in terms of his conviction, he had already taken away the victims' privacy, and he is threatening the victims to shame which is another grounds for extortion. so the court rejected his argument, basically saying there was no need for a direct threat or explicit threat. that the nature of the website and that website

constituted a threat to continue to suggest people to humiliation and disgrace unless they paid the fee, and they could only get the point is removed if they paid the fee. so we compared at two wakita shaw. the lawyer, the payday lender, will say they did not make threats, the case law says they do not need to make a direct threats, and in this context, if you have taken away a person's freedom, take away someone's privacy, the threat is you are going to continue to take that desk privacyate and freedom from them. what is common with these civil contempt or seatings is once you paid the fee, the money does the 2:00. it is not good to the courthouse. it must go to the creditor of the civil content process in the first place. my argument is this is extortion because the only way she gets out of jail as if she pays this amount which by the way is

almost three times the amount of the original loan. so we knock out the argument that you are only getting what you are entitled to. through this process you have ratcheted up the fees so that this person is paying a lot money to get out of jail and that the crimes they are being accused of is something related to payday lending. are knownyday lenders for threatening people with bad check prosecution if they do not pay their payday loans off. so now let's move to the second form of criminalization. this is where we have lots of companies that only threaten to have a person incarcerated. payday lenders, that collecting companies, car title letters. the litigation involving the state of washington, several affidavit from consumers stated they had been threatened with the charged with a crime if did not turn over the property or did not pay the past due balance.

let's focus on car title lenders. i want to make sure you understand and i am not picking one creditor here and there. this is a pervasive problem of high-cost creditors exporting the criminal justice system to threaten people with arrest. you puttle loan is what up to get a loan. virginia robertson default on on a loan. the car title repo man showed up with a document called certificate of service, and these are the words that were there, failure to comply with this notice is unlawful and a felony.gree that is the crime she is being accused of committee. should you fail to contact, your inaction will result in the complaint lodged against you in the local magistrate can and this may result in a felony warrant issued for your arrest.

after this she turned over the vehicle and my argument is this is extortion. this is not like one of the cases i actually passed over where the court looked at the threat being implied. this is not an implied threat. this is explicit. if you do not turn over this car, you are going to get prosecuted if you do not turn over this car, and that is enough to constitute an explicit threat. states, it as other is criminal extortion to accuse someone of an offense in order to get money or other property from that. that would include turn over the vehicle. gois important for us to after the big guys force torsion because otherwise there's no incentive for the small businesses to do anything. this, a company was sued by the cfpb for a host of violations of consumer protection laws. ace cash express the

largest payday lender. the main thing that came out of the case was a training manner. the training manual diagram which we can't get into the specifics of it, but they alleged that the training manual diagram was used to create a sense of urgency that the consumers had to get another payday loan, roll over the existing payday loan, and that its own in-house employees as well as a third-party that collects threatens people with criminal prosecution if they did not make these payments, if they did not pay what was demanded of them. and so my contention is some higher up people need to be charged with conspiracy to commit extortion, right? we see all the media drama with wells fargo. all the low level employees, and we know they are following instructions from someone. somewhere in the mid-level management, a training manual doesn't get created by one

person. it is created and in a big corporation there are plenty of people who had to be involved in the training manual to tell the workers to do all these things to try to intimidate people into paying. my argument is this should be conspiracy to commit extortion and that crime focuses on not necessarily whether the victim pays, because you and i know there will be some people no matter how much you threaten them, they do not have the money to pay. so conspiracy to commit extortion will focus on the behavior itself, the agreement use the threat of accusing someone of a crime in order to resort money out of them. the last form of criminalization i will talk about is actually having people arrested, filing police reports. to do it because he is from texas. ofh bids filed hundreds complaint against people in only certain just just -- certain

jurisdictions in texas, because they knew the office would send out a letter basically saying if you don't page you will be charged with the crime of passing bad checks. the majority of the time the consumers paid just because they feared going to jail. in the q&a we can talk about how this process is being used to add a whole bunch of fees. folks are not just paying off loans. again, this constitute extortion because you are not just getting repay the loan. now you are able to use the force of the criminal justice system to add on more fees to cause the consumer to get out of jail or avoid going to jail. so in my paper i argue this is bad for a host of reasons including the fact that most state statutes actually ban most state constitutions ban the imprisonment of people for failure to pay civil debts, and that what we've got going on is we've got routinely various creditors doing the run around

these constitutional prohibitions on incarceration over civil debt. in particular, the payday lender is even worse because several states including the state of texas have laws that limit even prosecution against payday loan borrowers. some state statutes say they payday loan borrowers be prosecuted for passing a bad check. texas statute right here as you can see there is a limitation. the creditor has to show forgery, fraud, or some other specific overt act related to this. in other words, simply giving someone a postdated check this later dishonored if not the crime of passing a bad check. that has been the law for several years and yet you had biz filing criminal complaints knowing that the state statute requires something other than a dishonored bounced check as a basis for filing criminal complaints against

individuals. so i argue in the paper that we should care about this because otherwise we are now in state constitutions to be violated. we are allowing particular creditors who use civil contempt to basically use the subterfuge to do what they really can't do, which is many times getting exempt income sources. you think about wakita shaw for example. they couldn't get a court order getting her child support payments. those are social security, all sorts of income are being tapped into through coercion by making people fearful of arrest if they don't pay. and lastly, we've got various states and federal consumer protection laws that are being circumvented if we allow creditors to basically what i call extortion in order -- basically intimidate consumers through what i call extortion in order to get paid. my time is up in jim is making sure we are still on time.

let's go to the next person. his topic is about accuracy of credit reports. >> do i close out? all right. so i'm going to talk about credit report. it's not just about credit, but used for insurance, housing and employment as well. they are frequently wrong. ftc a few years ago completed a study and found that 20% of credit reports contained material errors. these errors persist despite a federal statute that requires the industry use reasonable procedures to ensure maximum possible accuracy. this standard is generally enforced with a liability rule,

with suits, what you describe as negligence liability. the credit bureaus themselves are liable if they are negligent in trying to pursue the standard. the creditors that send the information largely protected by liability for the statute. that is not all the statute does. it also pursues other goals. one of the things it does is it limits the content or use of report and will talk a little bit about also today a provision that limits reporting of old negative information. most negative information failing to repay a debt, you can't report it after seven years. this is a hotly disputed topic. there have been many amendments since 1970 when it was enacted. many proposals for changes today to address both accuracy and limits on use. in terms of accuracy the proposals for greater liability,

proposals for a set of liability have in the issue in junk it ruled to have regional procedures for maximum possible accuracy. shortening the. information, and outright prohibiting the use of credit reports for employment. rather than address all of those topics individually, i only had 15 minutes. i will instead ask a threshold question. maybe not, which is widely regulate at all? this may reveal my priors are different than most of those in the room about regulation. even if you are convinced me to regulate, if the doctor is convinced the patient is sick, the doctor needs to figure out what is causing the illness to figure out an effective treatment. so we then ask you don't share the prior adopt that approach. you might think the answer is easy.

you're in the area of strict liability, want to force the tort here, the industry to internalize the harms that they are causing to consumers and that would cause them to internalize the full social cost of their actions and thereby adopt the right level of care. the problem with this story is the harm being inflicted on the with an offense come invisible benefit to other consumers. the primary harm victims are separating -- suffering is they , andeing forced to pool their presence in the pool should according to theory improve the terms being offered to those consumers. so the private costs suffered by the victims exceed the social costs. a simple example will maybe make this clear. [indiscernible]

you have 20 consumers who will default 20% of the time. they are all applying for a loan in a competitive market. if we have perfect credit reporting system, what would have been the consumers would promise $100 payment to pay with certainty. the high-risk consumers would have to promise $125 because they default 80% of the time. they repay $100 on average. that's assumed we introduce the state to the credit reports, in particular, nine of the lowest consumers are going to be misidentified as high risk. what is going to happen if they still have the perfect credit report are going to be paid a million dollars, but the misidentified consumers will have to pay 116. not 125 because the people who are marked high no longer default 25% of the time.

they default somewhat less often because nine of these people are actually low risk. so the competition should drive the promised price down to 116. this is a very real $16 loss for low-risk consumers. there are nine of them. $144 loss. on the other hand, the 20 truly high-risk consumers to see their price drop by $9. % of the time so they have $144 gain. in other words, in this very simple example, there are significant private cost of the misidentified consumers, but actually no social costs. it's all about wealth transfer for one group to the other. all about distribution. in the real words, errors can have social cost for a variety of reasons. i have 15 minutes i'm not going to go through all of them other than to simply note that this

idea of separating isn't unique to the credit markets. this happens in insurance and usually what we worry about is not that the business is going to spend too little effort to try to separate the high and low risks, but they will spend too much effort. this is one of the justifications for the affordable care act and laws that limit the ability to discriminate between high risk health insurance people with existing conditions and health insurance people. there's other arguments but that is one of the arguments. we need to explain why lenders would not have enough incentive to spend money to get accurate credit reports. by story that is often told government reports is credit reports are overly negative because the law -- the loss they experienced run debt or default is the lost principles are much larger than the prophet david at

from illegal loan. the people have realized their mistake in that they are 20 eight bad loan that the fault certainty, where a bad loan is the loan where is the -- the loss of default is less than the lost profit and if the large competitive market are supposedn to be the same. that is not a justification for this law. you can tell stories based on competition. depending on how you characterize the market, the cost of acquiring information in ae a sunk cost, and competitive market, the lender will not cover those costs. so may decide to invest too little from a social perspective in that information. similarly, we should realize some of the information comes from public records. etc. ptcies,

most of the information comes from creditors themselves. they had a strong incentive to not share that information or share that information in a poor way. if they share great information competitors will realize who the best customers are. you can tell the market failure theses, but i argue that stories do not justify current regulation because the current regulation as a general holds itsindustry liable for misstatements, for the errors, something that the consumer can point to, not omissions. that is the nature of the process where the consumer will be coming in to complain. they will say you said something wrong about me, and it is bad, they will not say you failed to include other information about other types of credit that do not get reported or you failed to include that information

about me. that will not happen. as a consequence, excessive liability, what that would cause is a strong disincentive for the sharing of information, especially for types of credit like subprime credit, where there is inherent akron -- inherent inaccuracy in the system. i argue that does not mean we should not have this law. may we be -- maybe we could justify distributional grounds. and here i borrowed a term from one of my colleagues, which may not be the most intuitive term called differential inaccuracy. maybe an example would help. suppose we are applying for health insurance. there is some genetic disease that substantially increases the amount of parents -- the amount of health care you are going to need. let's just worry about costs. let's not worry about trying to look at perspective for now. we're just worried about the

welfare of the truly healthy. sort of strange, but i'll justify that in a moment. we nowad -- assuming introduce a genetic test that can determine whether you have this disease. let's assume it identifies everybody who has the disease but also mistakenly have some , false positives and identify people who are truly healthy and puts them in the thick pool. -- the sick cold. that will cause a small number of healthy people to subsidize a large number of sick people. if we instead and the use of this test, we would spread the cost of subsidizing the sick people more broadly over society as a whole. that story is nice, but does not fit well with credit reporting where we are trying to encourage more accurate reports to better be able to separate the high and low risk. suggests we can, at least if we ignore the plight of the truly sick or the truly high-risk.

assume we have 950 low-risk pay withd they will certainty, and the high-risk people will default with certainty. everyone will apply for a one-year loan, and an sure the highest people in the market, i will assume no one will pay more than $110 for the loan. there are credit reports that identify the high risks but misidentified 95 low risk is high risk it correctly identified they pay 100 bucks. nobody else will take out a loan to charge more than 100. a second test is available that would identify and correct the mistake and identify the other 95 low-risk people. there is a potential $10 of social surplus. just trying to maximize wealth spendhould be willing to $950 for these better tests. the consumers may prefer a law that in days even if the cost is a thousand.

this would reduce their expected gain, but risk of version mean they would prefer that system. i clearly do not have any time to go through the distributional justification -- sorry, i do have time for a caveat here. this ignores the caveat of what we do about the truly high risk type. greater accuracy is going to generally make the high risk groups worse off because fewer and fewer low risk -- fewer and fewer high fico score people as you increase the accuracy of reports. i don't have time to talk about efficiency justifications and limits on use. i will just say a brief note about distributional consequences. one of the major arguments for limiting the use of credit reports in employment is that causes disparate impact, reduces

minority employment, but the two studies completed so far that look at state laws, that limit the use of these reports find exactly the opposite. it turns out if you limit the use of credit reports in employment, minorities, particularly black employment goes down. why? it could be the employers are shifting in another greater disparate impact or simply they are using the race outright as a proxy for credit reports. argue the fairi credit reporting act is best explained as pursuing this regional and non-efficiency goals. is well-suited to address the failure. distributional goals will explain why we place greater emphasis on mistakes in credit

reports. but we should remind ourselves that the distribution effects of the limitations can sometimes be counterintuitive. it turns out the initial evidence just the banning of the reducesredit reports black employment. and i'm under my 15 minutes. >> thank you very much. i will start with technology in this pair line -- paper. caroline, brad, john, and crisper. amazingbe about this data we have access to and i'm going to show a lot of interesting suspicious on the correlation between local conditions and that a collection.

this ai start presenting 60 you guys, i want to make sure we're on the same page. everyone in this room knows what data collection is, but i want to make sure i reinforce the concept. accountlection is that that has been previously more than 180 days past due and has been closed. account a credit card that you did not pay and for the first 180 days or six months, that is 180 days that that's those the collection. is thing you might not know one third of americans with a credit file has some type of data collection reported in that credit file. that is kind of an interesting statistic. why should we care about data collections?

if you have a data collection in your credit history, that is going to affect your credit score. as we know if you have a bad credit score, it is going to affect your future access to credit. that might be used by employers when they are trying to hire you. that will increase insurance premiums. the second point is related to the presentation this morning that when you have data collection that create some effects on your well-being. you will get more frustrated, or angry. also another point is decreasing that a collections is not just affecting those that have that collections, but increases the performance of the market in general. if everybody else has less than a collections, there is more credit in the market and interest rates are lower. given this mitigation for what questions we will answer in this paper, we will do something very descriptive. we will look in the country, which areas of the country have high shares of people without a

collections. alert, we willer show the southern region and the west region of the country are the regions where there is more consumers with the highest share of data collection. the next research question we will try to answer is that we will look at those regions, particularly to the track level, so a very small geographic area. 4000 people. we will define that as neighborhoods. we will look at the characteristics of those neighborhoods and see which characteristics are related to the share of people with data collections there. we are going to examine and love different characteristics of this neighborhood, but we will focus mostly in health care conditions, but we look at the share of people in the neighborhoods that are not insured by health insurance, and we will although -- also look at health costs.

we'll will look at housing conditions. homeowners in the area, housing down use, rents, and underwater mortgages. now i will say something about this amazing data, but it is hard to say that because we're using credit data and richard just said how bad that data is. we still think it is amazing. this is a snapshot of september 2013 and then we get a sample of 7 million people. is reason we got 7 million what it can handle with our computers. this data has information on the credit files of all the people, around the country. the good thing about this is we have very good description of the credit history of these people, so we know the types of debts they have, if they had data collection. we know the approximate residency of these people. we know your credit history and more or less where you live.

we are going to use this data and augment that with characteristics, getting s and theon from the ac document outlets for housing costs. what he did -- what is the outcome of interest here? the outcome interest for the presentation is an indicator if someone has that a collection or not. we're going to make one rejection higher than $100, because it is a good collection, that would be like a parking fine or something that is very small that happened a long time ago. you do not know about it. and we know for fact this credit useng company, they do not that collection in their credit scores. the definition of data collection, i just did for you already. here is the most interesting

part. this is a map of the united ,tates, and this shows a shift census track, that has data collection. and that as a said before, you see that regions of the u.s. had rate of data collection, especially the southern region and the west region. the state that has the highest people and that with data collection in 2013 was about. consumersple -- of with a credit file had data collections reported in their credit file. the region of the u.s. with the lowest share with data collection is the upper midwest, north dakota, south dakota, the soda. north dakota is the state in the u.s. with the lowest share of people with data collection. 17% of people have data collections. the united states, very big, so

what we will do is zoom in in two very different states. the first state is texas. on the left side you can see the distribution in texas by the shared data collection they had. i want to point out in the southern part of texas, there are a lot of consumersdistribute high share of data collection. in fact, interpol can areas in the u.s. with the highest share of data collection is in texas, called mcallen, in the southern part of texas. scheller --re the the shared people with the people in data collection, with people who do not have health insurance, there is an interesting pattern. the places where people have less coverage is also the place more datahave collections.

mcallen, texas, is one region in the country with the highest -- lowest health insurance coverage. 36% of adults do not have health insurance there. we will look to a completely different states, minnesota. minnesota is the state with a low number of people with data collections. even within the soda, there is an interesting variation. this is the region of the state with the highest share of data collection, if my minnesota geography is correct. the place in the north, northwest, and you can see more than 65% of consumers in the area has data collection. if you compare to the parts of the state where people do not have health insurance, it is correlation there. with high shares of people without health insurance. if you do not believe in maps

and think maps can be misleading, what i am going to do is plot a graph, showing the share of people in each census track in neighborhoods. 4000 people. the share of people that do not have the health insurance in that census tract, compared to the share of people that have -- that had data collections. you can see a clear pattern. the correlation between people without health insurance and the share of people with data collations is 0.6. it is not everything about health insurance. there's also housing markets. here we do the same graph, but instead of plotting people without health insurance, and will plot to people with negative equities meaning that the mortgage value that you have in your house is higher than home value. this is an indicator of how about -- how bad the housing market is.

you will see a positive correlation there. this is with the highest year of negative equity also have a higher share of people data collection. we do one more thing because we have this amazing data, so we will show different stuff. we will plot the same graph and we will look at the unemployment rate. this was in 2013, the end of the great recession -- the beginning of the recovery of the great recession. that the showing here census tract would have a higher share of high unemployment rates and also the ones that face a higher share of individuals that collection. the i only have 15 minutes, and i could go over and over, but i can give you a summary. lower health insurance coverage, lower housing values, high unemployment rates, lower median

share thatd higher latinos are was with higher share of data collections. you forlike to tell sure, give people health willance, and that it give people jobs. i cannot say that because this is not a causal paper. we are just showing statistics, so i cannot make a statement that strongly. one thing i can say is that knowing things about neighborhoods can tell you a lot of the likelihood that someone will have data collection. policiesying to find that can improve financial well-being, make people less likely to have data collection -- we can use this information somehow. creatingink instead of

a financial coaching program, we can do something more direct two places that we know where it is a problem, make the policy less expensive and more effective. thank you very much. an can send me an gmail -- too, but i don't have that here. you can go to our website. thank you. [applause] mr. sousa: good morning. thank you for having me. i am an associate professor at university of denver college of

law, where i generally teach bankruptcy. before i begin, let me thank the staff for organizing this symposium, which i think is important and timely. and thanks the law and contemporary problems journal for organizing the symposium. we are speaking about consumer indebtedness, and in addition to the criminalization of debtors, one categories filing form bankruptcy. that is something i study for consumers and consumer bankruptcies. what i like to do through my presentation is start with a theoretical framework, my methodology, research questions, then perhaps get to the fun stuff, that what these preliminary data show. that is a work in progress. i may be the odd duck because i

will talk about law directly. most of this is from a sociological framework. it is probably well taken that a lot of social and income stratification in the sociology literature comes from the macro perspective. we heard a lot of that from the first panel, from the consumer protection bureau. paper is lookhis at it from a micro sociological level. that is significant. as you see on the slide, this pattern of income inequality at the pattern level -- the marco level for quantitative statistics reproduce themselves personmicro level, at face-to-face interactions and the phenomena they find themselves in. what might past and current

research does is take this micro sociological perspective through the lens of people filing for consumer bankruptcy. at the risk of boring everyone in the room -- but i felt obligated to lay out my theory, less iv yelled at by law -- i be yelled at by law professors -- to water it down completely, it is a qualitative approach to yielding empirical data about human conduct. close ands to get familiar with the people you are studying, to learn about their situation. the theory of symbolic interactionism is about meeting, and keyed out through interviews, the meaning people make in their own lives. in this case, their finances and indebtedness.

aat i did with this study is study of a legal aid office. i situated myself in a study legal aid office of two attorneys and colorado. i cannot name them. they have given me full access to observe their lawyer-client lawyer-client interactions with their assistance, mainly dealing with bankruptcy. anyone that they have an appointment with that particular day i am there, we offer them the opportunity for me to listen to the lawyer-client counseling session about their soon to be bankruptcy petition. after the interview, if i feel comfortable, i will ask if they will sit down with me at a later date for an in-depth interview, which usually lasts half an hour

to talk about their experiences. the goal is to understand what they are processing. the term of the paper "legal consciousness," how are they appreciating this bankruptcy process? it is qualitative, so my findings are not supposed to be representative of every debtor in the country. it is a small sampling. however, using the concepts coming forth through the people's narratives, hopefully these concepts will form a theoretical framework of how many consumers around the country think about their bankruptcy cases. the research questions are very hink"e -- how do people "t about this bankruptcy process? many consumers hear the word bankruptcy and think it is this ominous thing to be challenged,

or fearful of it. they don't know much about it, which is probably understandable. second, how do they make the decision to file bankruptcy? and third, how do they gain access to the bankruptcy system? some of the people i am interviewing are a little bit biased obviously because they have already found a way to access the system. a large part, they have made a decision to file for bankruptcy. but i do ask them questions of how they came about the decision to do so. demographics -- at this point, i have spoken with 23 total people, which does not sound like a lot. qualitatively, it is right in the wheelhouse. the goal is to interview 40 to 50 people. the breakdown is pretty much 1/3

and 1/3 and 1/3 between single males, single females, and married couples. overwhelmingly the population is caucasian -- this is a small city in colorado, mainly a caucasian community. but there are a lot of latinos and latinas. african-american folks use these services less frequently. the demographics may not be made up of what you think. i thought it would be more unemployed, however 70%, or approximately so have been employed while going through bankruptcy. these people are middle to low income. they have jobs like hairstylist, or driving for a waste management company, or a waitress, or doing those types of jobs. -- no in my population

white color -- white collar. just a general average, it is probably over $1000 to file what is caused a simple chapter seven bankruptcy petition. this legal aid office charges people only $500 to do so. they represent them from start to finish. it is a low-cost option for people to final fantasy -- to file bankruptcy. the gross monthly income is waste upon the bankruptcy petition. i am just giving you the mean and median. i don't think that is significant as the next slide. the disparity in these 23 people of total assets versus total liabilities -- the mean is less important because there are one or two outliers that are fully

secured by a mortgage. assets,see in the total a the median of these 23 people are a little over $9,000. that may not be much to people, but the median is tremendously overwhelming compared to their assets. they simply don't have the means to pay back the amount of debt they have incurred, much of which you found is medically related. -- hereinary findings is where it may be gets interesting -- this list is not in order of importance, just the way that i typed them. the emergent concepts, the first i found interesting -- financial desperation and identity work. in the sociological literature, particularly with people in a stigmatized condition in bankruptcy, it is a stigmatizing condition for many people in

much of middle income america. what is interesting that i have found is that the male i spoke with in this population, particularly fathers, are finding it difficult to have to admit to themselves that they need to file bankruptcy for their families. they take it as a tremendous hit senseir manhood, their of being the provider role. they equally it to a great sense of failure, to the point of where one or two of the fathers that i spoke with thought of suicide or self-medication through alcohol, because they were so despondent about having failed their families. second, we have heard a lot about credit this morning. one of the things that people -- theset credit

bankruptcy filers, everyone invariably asks the attorney, how do i build my credit back up? there is a practical reason for it, to get a car loan or mortgage in the future, and for a lower interest rate. but when you listen closely to some of these stories, a lot of them that i interviewed equate good credit with self-worth. one woman i spoke with, where i literally could investor what color the sky was, and her refrain was "i used to have a 700 credit score. i want it back ." it was about her sense of self-worth, and that it meant something. even though the number was not reported to other agencies, it was important to her identity to have a good credit score. they made her feel more worthy. the second finding is class status in lawyers, which i don't

think using dimmick -- think is endemic to bankruptcy. many of these are lower income at the time of filing are hesitant to seek the aid of an attorney. they come in in jeans and sneakers and shorts sometimes, and what they are fearful of is the lawyer that is wearing a fancy suit and an expensive tie that has a lot of books in his/her office. what they are really concerned about is being judged by an attorney that has a high level of education. this legalo me -- office used to be a bait and tackle shop, nothing fancy at all -- but they were concerned. they thought literally an attorney would be shaking his or

her finger in their face saying, you really messed up by being in financial trouble. why did you do it? they are holding back seeking assistance based upon this class and knowledge differential. more sociological perhaps, but in the deviance literature, people find themselves in a deviant condition do what is called lower boundary work. what these debtors are doing, unprovoked by me, are claiming boundaries between themselves and other debtors. their narrative is, i am the deserving debtor because i am here of a medical that, a recent divorce, factors beyond my control -- and they speak of this group of non-deserving debtors, who went to las vegas and gambled, who are abusing the entire credit process.

preachers has shown for -- research has shown for 10 to 15 years, the population does not exist. there are always people abusing the system. but they are creating this moral boundary perhaps to save face to themselves or the interviewer. delaying sulfonated -- delaying needed self-care. what we mean by that is those with medical problems are intentionally not going to the doctor and seeking treatment out of fear of creating another medical bill. for example, a woman who i interviewed who had debilitating lupus refused to go to the doctor, crying while she was saying this to me. she did not want to create another bill for her and her husband. so what does she do? she deals with the pain. others needing psychological issues are not seeking treatment because of the bill.

very quickly, one a minute left -- i didn't think i would get through it that quickly, or slowly -- there is a large amount of literature about who controls lawyer-client directions in a sort field. here i am finding it is more of a negotiated conversation between the lawyer and client. one thing i will note is that it is largely with the lawyer controlling the chapter choice of bankruptcy, particularly chapter seven. they all belong there likely because of their assets in chapter seven. the choice is essentially made by the attorney. the word always happens in every communication is "you obviously want to do a chapter seven." the client does not know the difference, except to agree with the lawyer. i ask the people i interviewed about their postbankruptcy

life. to sum up quickly, they have not thought about it at all very much, which is scary. that is perhaps the about theiry problem that needs to be addressed. and bankruptcy is a fresh start. many think that bankruptcy is this "fresh start" from financial life. many people think about this in a different way, which is a new life in their physical relationships or romantic relationships, their health, and even and income and employability, that bankruptcy will let them move on in other avenues in life beyond financial. thank you very much. [applause] ms. johnson: ok, why don't we open it up to questions? the last panel didn't get to have many questions from the

audience. they said they want to come up to the front with the mic. if you don't mind that long walk. [laughter] >> thank you so much. a couple comments for the last two papers. interesting work. with 23 observations, i don't think we can make much of the summary statistics. i encourage you to think more about the other findings you have, especially post bankruptcy life. when i teach bankruptcy, i take my students to a meeting at creditors. their interactions are instructed contrast to what you serve as a legally office. most of them have not met their lawyer before. there is a rollcall before the meeting. it is really interesting. trying to file

chapter 13 for the second, third, or fourth time, because they're planted not succeed. i'm curious if you could follow-up with your sample, if you see any differences in interacting with the legal aid offices. it seems like you have had success with chapter seven. was a really compelling story coming out of the data. curious to what extent your stories about debt and debt collection -- is there any reason to believe that collection agencies are more active than others? i just don't know the answer to that. please it the case that -- is it

the case that people are defaulting on debts more frequently, or that collection agencies or more active in other areas? question.ou for the no, the descriptors are not to be generalized. i would never necessarily put that in a paper. just a table to get a sense of who i am speaking with. your points are well taken. this is the only first sliver of a first series of papers that might address your concerns. t, i would like to do the same thing, but with private attorneys. at least in my state, to see if the interactions are any different, to see if the clientele have any other cautions about the preliminary process. the other idea is when this is

done, to do a longitudinal study of some of the debtors that i spoke with, specifically at six-month or year intervals. many people don't have a plan. their plan is to build their credit back up, and that is about it. we know if you don't increase your income or decrease your expenses, or do both, you may find yourself in the same position four or five years down the road. >> thanks for your question. when we started this paper, we had data collection as an outcome. we wrote the whole paper, but we realized the two things were very similar. for this reason, i think data collection is more related to

the financial stress of consumers. to answer your question, the regions of the country that have got a collection are the areas that have heightened the quincy. i just wanted to comment on bankruptcy. did religion come out in the interviews? i grew up in the bible belt. he is now dead, but a very popular man in the 1990's basically said, bankruptcy is a failure, and cis not file bankruptcy. i practiced law. -- in helpingers them, one of the problems was convincing them that god was not going to be mad at them if they filed bankruptcy.

this is a way for god to get you to do relief. >> i'm glad you answer that question. the answer is yes, but not where you think. near this legal aid office, there is a church that has 10,000 members. because it is a local community, some members have a legal aid office. i don't ask questions on the questionnaire about religion, but they bring them up. they say things like that -- i think i'm a bad person. two out of three times, go and see the pastor of that church and the clergy, and that clergy actually looks at their balance sheet, and advises them that it is ok to file for bankruptcy. there is no shame involved with respect to the church. it is the church that gives them the sense that it is an ok thing

to do, which is not what i have expected. ms. johnson: bankruptcy plan, at what point are you interviewing these folks? when i practiced bankruptcy law, when we did counseling sessions we discussed okay, after this is all over, you have to find a way to get more income or decrease expenses. really you have to do both so that you don't find yourself in bankruptcy again in the future. yeah, i am interviewing these people with their first interview with the lawyer, thinking about their finances, getting all the financial information down. they are on the precipice of filing for bankruptcy. some of them don't come back.

this is before the process actually starts. you are right. i don't think other than getting this law firmit, does not do much of a job on counseling. it is interesting that many have not thought about it. it is the temporality of the bankruptcy process that is concerning. no, loyola. >> bruno, i wanted to ask about your proposed solutions. why is it going to help to get financial coaching if the problem is medical debt, or unemployment? i can understand why the match saving program makes sense. you want more people in that zip code. financial coaching does not make much to me. rich -- onets for

low psychohe value to score consumers -- low score consumers, given that they are not indebted. filing for vagrancy leads to suicide risk, even. i wanted you to address the sort of parallel between this , that if you hold information, you will get more race discrimination. finding when discrimination laws came into effect, people were less likely to hire african-americans, just because people were more likely to litigate when they are fired than hired or not hired. fact that we know that antidiscrimination

laws still serve in expressive purpose and a long-term purpose, that is important for society. and maybe accuracy in credit reporting, and not using credit reports for employment or housing to serve expressive value. your financial history is not going to trail you -- you get a fresh start, or should not be judged for your finances when you apply for a job. there could be some expressive value their. -- value there. mr. braga: the evidence we have effective financial education is -- it is not clear. there are a bunch of papers that says it helps a lot, other papers that say there is no

evidence. i think financial coaching could interact with things that happened to you. for example, if you lose your job, you have to make decisions about using savings for your kids to go to college, to pay my bet -- so these events could interpreted with financial cushion. that is why financial coaching could help those areas in financial distress. >> you bring up some very good point. i agree that there is a social cost, what i would call misallocation. you allow the pooling, the high cost types are not paying the true cost of services to them. therefore, they may consume even when there are no provided benefits for the cost.

in some cases like health insurance, we don't worry about that. we don't think the cancer patient will be over consuming medical care. but in some cases we might. we don't want the high risk auto driver to continue driving. i hope it is still in the draft of this paper. maybe i cut things for words. but there is a misallocation and credit markets. the interest rate tells them something, right? and maybe they shouldn't be taking on debt. over deadness can have all sorts btedness has all sorts of problems. 2-d discrimination point, the with regard to the discrimination point, the withholding information can harm minorities

is not unique to credit reports. another one of my colleagues at virginia has a recent paper with them the box, and another that if you have access to criminal records, employment goes down, because people assume skin color is correlated with a crime. they are overestimating the correlation, that seems to be what is going on. can't remember the name off the top of my head, but the paper showed that laws that restricted the use of drug testing, minority employment goes down. if you encourage drug testing, minority employment goes up. there may some expressive purposes, although we should recognize that our expressive purposes have re