Congress Fawned Over Bernanke, But It Mansplains To Janet Yellen, The First Woman Fed Chair

WASHINGTON -- Janet Yellen in February became the 15th chair of the Federal Reserve and the first woman to hold that job, and has so far run Fed policy not all that differently from her predecessor, Ben Bernanke.

But somehow, members of Congress seem to view her very differently indeed from Bernanke, whom they treated with the sort of respect generally reserved for the person setting the nation's monetary policy. In Bernanke's last briefing to the House Financial Services Committee last July, committee Chair Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) was more than polite.

"This chairman considers you to be one of the most able public servants I have ever met," Hensarling told Bernanke. "Our nation will always, always be grateful."

"No one questions your desire to help our country," added Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.).

But when Yellen gave the same monetary policy briefing on Wednesday, Hensarling even begrudged her the three-hour time limit he regularly granted Bernanke. The treatment she received was more like, well ... mansplaining.

Watch it above.

Debt Collection 'Factory' Preyed On Broke Americans: Lawsuit

A federal watchdog is suing a collection agency that allegedly operated like a "factory" churning out lawsuits against cash-strapped borrowers, often using misleading, deceptive and illegal practices.

The suit is the latest effort by regulators to crack down on debt collection abuse. The billion-dollar industry has ballooned in size over the past two decades and is under fire for filing wrongful lawsuits against vulnerable borrowers.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced on Monday that it had sued Frederick J. Hanna & Associates, a Georgia-based law firm that sues consumers for old, outstanding debts owed to banks, debt buyers and credit card companies.

The complaint against Hanna & Associates alleges that the firm operated as a lawsuit "factory," cranking out more than 350,000 suits in Georgia alone since 2009. What's more, the company operates with a skeleton staff of eight to 16 lawyers who merely put their signature on lawsuits, while the bulk of the work at the firm is performed by "automated processes" and non-attorney staff, according to the CFPB complaint.

In 2009 and 2010, the suit claims, a single lawyer at the company signed off on about 138,000 lawsuits, an average of about 1,300 a week. Such a feat would seem to test the limits of physical endurance. The firm's lawyers were expected to spend "less than a minute" looking at each lawsuit before signing it, the suit contends.

The CFPB complaint names the law firm's president, Frederick Hanna, and two of the company's managing partners. It is asking for the firm to be fined, for its victims to be compensated, and for an injunction against the company and its partners.

The website for Hanna & Associates, which was founded in 1981, describes the company as a law firm dedicated exclusively to "creditors’ rights and recoveries." Although the agency also has offices in Florida and Missouri, CFPB spokesperson Moira Vahey told HuffPost the agency's lawsuit focuses on the firm's alleged activity in Georgia.

Hanna & Associates Managing Partner Joseph C. Cooling said in a statement that the firm strongly denies the allegations.

"Our law firm takes great pride in its commitment to compliance with all consumer protection laws and takes great pains every day to ensure compliance with state civil procedure and evidentiary laws, step by step," he said.

Businesses hire debt collection firms like Hanna & Associates to recover delinquent debts from consumers. It's most often credit card debt, but can include things like old cell phone or utility bills. The collection firms are typically paid a fee or a percentage of the debts they successfully collect.

Hanna & Associates' clients include high-profile banks like Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Capital One and Discover, the federal lawsuit says. BofA and Discover declined to comment. The other banks did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Vahey said the probe is still ongoing. "The Bureau is still collecting evidence and will continue to do so as the case proceeds through the court system," she said.

Unfortunately, Hanna & Associates' alleged tactics may not be the problems of just one rogue firm.

"These practices sound so familiar to me when I read this complaint," said Susan Shin of the New Economy Project, which advocates against predatory debt collection practices. "We're happy to see that the CFPB is going after these abusive practices. This sounds like it could be brought against a lot of collection firms."

The CFPB contends that many of the lawsuits filed by Hanna & Associates resulted in default judgments, which occur when a borrower doesn't show up for his or her court date. Depending on the state, these default judgements sometimes let creditors seize wages and savings or put liens on property.

Yet collectors don't always do their due diligence in properly tracking down consumers and verifying that the debts are valid. In June, HuffPost profiled a 69-year-old retired veteran who had his mother's house taken from him over a debt he said he didn't owe. The veteran, Willie Wilson of Elgin, Texas, said he never even received the notice to come to court.

In States That Didn't Expand Medicaid, It's As If Obamacare Doesn't Even Exist For The Poor

Twenty-five states didn't take up the Obamacare Medicaid expansion at the beginning of this year, and the results speak for themselves: A new survey shows more than one-third of their lowest-income residents remain uninsured, a rate virtually unchanged from last year, even as millions gained coverage elsewhere.

Nationwide, the share of Americans 19 to 64 years old without health insurance fell from 20 percent to 10 percent, as 9.5 million people got covered by Medicaid or private health insurance, according to a poll of Obamacare enrollees published Thursday by the Commonwealth Fund.

Among adults who earn less than poverty wages in states that didn't expand Medicaid, the uninsured rate is 36 percent, a decline of two percentage points (termed not statistically significant) from last year. That compares to a dramatic drop from 28 percent to 17 percent in states that expanded Medicaid.

The debate over the Medicaid expansion remains arguably the most consequential unresolved matter related to the Affordable Care Act, as the refusal by Republican governors and state legislatures to accept federal dollars to provide health care to poor people is having real effects on the ground.

Medicaid Expansion Decisions By States Have Predictable Results

The authors of the ACA didn't foresee this outcome, which was made possible by a Supreme Court ruling in 2012 giving states the right to opt out of Medicaid expansion and granting GOP politicians another cudgel to use against Obamacare.

Source: The Advisory Board Company

The law was originally designed to make Medicaid available to anyone who earns less than 133 percent of the federal poverty level, or $15,282 this year for a single person. The law also lets individuals who make between the poverty level of $11,490 to four times that amount get tax credits to cut the cost of private health insurance. But anyone who makes less than that -- or even nothing -- gets no assistance if they live in Texas, Florida, Louisiana or the other states didn't didn't expand the program.

Law Meant To Cover The Uninsured Is Covering Them

Among Obamacare enrollees with either Medicaid or private health insurance obtained through insurance exchanges, 63 percent didn't have health coverage before. Two-thirds of new Medicaid enrollees were previously uninsured. The greatest gains in health coverage were among young adults, poor adults and Latinos, the survey found.

The Commonwealth Fund poll, conducted through telephone interviews of 4,425 people by the firm SSRS from April to June, focused special attention on the six most populous states.

California, which expanded Medicaid, cut its uninsured rate in half to 11 percent. In Florida, which did not expand the program to more people, the share of uninsured residents declined from 30 percent to 26 percent, a difference deemed statistically insignificant. Texas also didn't expand Medicaid, but its uninsured rate still fell from 34 percent to 22 percent, the survey found. Texas and Florida still have the highest uninsured rates in the nation.

Big Variations In The Uninsured Rate In The Big States

The Man Who Made Abercrombie & Fitch Less White Just Quit

The man who made Abercrombie & Fitch's workforce less dominated by whites and men has quit the company. He will be replaced by a woman.

Todd Corley, chief diversity officer at the teen apparel retailer, is starting the TAPO Institute, an advisory firm that will advocate for "inclusive leadership," Abercrombie announced on Thursday.

A decade ago, more than 90 percent of Abercrombie's store associates were white. The issue received public scrutiny in 2004, when the company settled three class-action lawsuits filed by former employees who accused Abercrombie of race and gender discrimination. Abercrombie paid nearly $50 million to thousands of minority and female plaintiffs and pledged to diversify its workforce.

Chief executive Mike Jeffries tapped Corley, then a senior manager of diversity for Starwood Hotels & Resorts, to head Abercrombie's new Office of Diversity.

Now, more than half of Abercrombie's associates are minorities, according to the company. As for senior executives: More than 40 percent of Abercrombie's vice presidents are women, as are 75 percent of executive vice presidents and 33 percent of the board of directors, according to Abercrombie. These figures are notably higher than at many public companies.

Abercrombie did not provide information about how many of its senior executives are minorities.

"I am proud of the accomplishments we have made together as an organization," Corley said in a statement. "The efforts began around race and ethnicity but evolved to include diversity in the way people think, cultural differences and creating an inclusive place to work."

Amy Zehrer, executive vice president of stores and a 22-year veteran of Abercrombie, will take over the company's diversity program.

While Abercrombie has received praise in some areas for its inclusive environment -- a company press release notes that the Human Rights Campaign has named A&F a Best Place to Work for the LGBT community every year since 2007 -- it has also been dogged by allegations of religious, racial and size discrimination, even after its diversity program was well underway.

The retailer's exacting dress code, for example, has been the subject of much scrutiny. It dictates everything from how Abercrombie retail workers can highlight their hair to the way they should double-cuff their skinny jeans.

Store employees told The Huffington Post in 2013 that enforcement of the style guide ensnared workers who wore religious items such as hijabs and crosses. A pair of lawsuits from Muslim women who were fired or refused employment over their hijabs led to a change in Abercrombie's policies last August, specifically acknowledging that the headscarves must be accommodated in the workplace.

"I felt like I never belonged and was uncomfortable working at Abercrombie," one former employee told HuffPost. "It was pretty ironic how they were recruiting diverse employees, but only if your hair is not covered."

Last year, Abercrombie was skewered for discriminating against people with larger body types, refusing to stock bigger sizes for female customers in accordance with Jeffries' ideal of the "attractive all-American kid." In a 2006 interview with Salon, which resurfaced in May 2013, Jeffries said: "A lot of people don't belong [in our clothes], and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely."

Following the backlash, Abercrombie decided to offer larger sizes for some of its women's clothes in its online store. A new XL size is now available for some women's tops, and some pants and shorts are available in size 14, up from the previous maximum of size 10.

In 2012, models for Abercrombie's sister brand Hollister mocked Asians by squinting their eyes as they posed for photos. Abercrombie fired the employees.

But perhaps Abercrombie's most infamous racial controversy occurred before Corley's tenure.

In 2002, a line of racist T-shirts hit Abercrombie's shelves. Emblazoned with caricatures of Asians with slanted eyes and conical hats, the shirts were quickly recalled after outrage among the Asian-American community. One shirt bore the slogan "Wong Brothers Laundry Service -- Two Wongs Can Make It White." Another displayed an image for "Abercrombie's Pizza Dojo," which promised customers, "You Love Long Time."

Citigroup May Pay $7 Billion To Resolve Mortgage Probe

By Karen Freifeld and Aruna Viswanatha

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON, July 8 (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc is close to paying about $7 billion to resolve a U.S. probe into whether it defrauded investors on billions of dollars worth of mortgage securities in the run-up to the financial crisis, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

A majority of the settlement is expected to be in cash, but the figure also includes several billion dollars in help to struggling borrowers, the source said.

An announcement of the settlement between the bank and the U.S. Department of Justice could come as early as next week, the source said.

A Citigroup representative declined comment. A Justice Department spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment.

A settlement of around $7 billion for Citigroup would be higher than analysts had expected based on the bank's mortgage securities business.

Some Wall Street analysts had previously estimated that Citigroup likely had about $3 billion of reserves set aside for a related settlement. U.S. authorities had demanded more than $10 billion last month, Reuters reported.

Talks between U.S. authorities and Citigroup stalled last month after both sides stood far apart on a settlement figure and the Justice Department had prepared to sue the bank.

The bank is scheduled to report second-quarter results on Monday. Analysts, on average, have estimated the company would earn $3.4 billion.

U.S. Attorneys offices in Brooklyn and Colorado have been investigating the bank as part of a larger task force probing faulty mortgage securities that helped fuel the housing bubble in the mid-2000s and contributed to its collapse.

JPMorgan Chase & Co paid $13 billion in November to resolve a range of probes from the task force, in a deal that U.S. authorities said would serve as a template for other banks. Bank of America Corp has also been in negotiations to resolve similar investigations. (Reporting by Aruna Viswanatha in Washington and Karen Freifeld in New York, with additional reporting by David Henry in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Foster Farms Recalls Chicken Linked To Salmonella Outbreak

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California chicken producer has issued its first recall since being linked to an outbreak of an antibiotic-resistant strain of salmonella that has been making people sick for more than a year, company and federal food officials said Thursday night.

The U.S. Department of Food and Agriculture said it has found evidence directly linking Foster Farms boneless-skinless chicken breast to a case of Salmonella Heidelberg, an antibiotic-resistant strain of the disease that has sickened more than 500 people in the past 16 months and led to pressure from food safety advocates for federal action against the company.

As a result, Foster Farms issued a recall for 170 different chicken products that came from its Fresno facilities in March.

The USDA said its investigators first learned of the salmonella case on June 23, and the recall was issued as soon as the direct link was confirmed. The location of the case and identity of the person were not released.

Foster Farms says the products have "use or freeze by" dates from March 21 to March 29 and have been distributed to California, Hawaii, Washington, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Oregon and Alaska.

The long list of products in the recall include drumsticks, thighs, chicken tenders and livers. Most are sold with the Foster Farms label but some have the labels FoodMaxx, Kroger, Safeway, Savemart, Valbest and Sunland. No fresh products currently in grocery stores are involved.

The USDA said it was working with the company to determine the total amount of chicken affected by the recall.

The company emphasized that the recall was based on a single case and a single product but the broad recall is being issued in an abundance of caution.

"Our first concern is always the health and safety of the people who enjoy our products, and we stand committed to doing our part to enhance the safety of our nation's food supply," Foster Farms said in a statement.

The federal Centers for Disease Control says 574 people from 27 states and Puerto Rico have been sickened since the outbreak began in 2013, leading to increasing pressure from food safety advocates for a recall or even an outright shutdown of Foster Farms facilities.

Bill Marler, a Seattle attorney who specializes in class-action food-safety lawsuits, commended both Foster Farms and the USDA for "doing the right thing for food safety."

"Recalling product is both embarrassing and hard, but is the right thing to do for your customers," Marler said.

The company was linked to previous salmonella illnesses in 2004 and in 2012.

Recalls of poultry contaminated with salmonella are tricky because the law allows raw chicken to have a certain amount of salmonella — a rule that consumer advocates have long lobbied to change. Because salmonella is so prevalent in poultry and is killed if consumers cook it properly, the government has not declared it to be an "adulterant," or illegal, in meat, as is E. coli.

In a letter from USDA to Foster Farms last October, the department said inspectors had documented "fecal material on carcasses" along with "poor sanitary dressing practices, insanitary food contact surfaces, insanitary nonfood contact surfaces and direct product contamination."

Foster Farms said in May that it had put new measures in place, including tighter screening of birds, improved safety on the farms where the birds are raised and better sanitation in its plants.