December 9, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Senate Democratic leaders have a tentative compromise on the “public option” part of the healthcare-reform bill which might be able to garner enough votes to get the whole package passed. Professor Alan Cohen, who heads BU’s Health Policy Institute, thinks it’s smart to offer private plans under the auspices of the federal-employee health program and […]
December 9, 2009 at 10:33 am
Tiger Woods has avoided the public since the Nov. 27 SUV crash at his home, even though he’s become a staple of newscasts and late-night comedy put-downs. PR Professor Peter Morrissey, a crisis-communication expert who worked on the Tylenol case, suggests Tiger must carefully pick his public appearances, take care of family matters, don’t blame the […]
December 8, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Although they were integral to the economic collapse, rating agencies thusfar have been spared regulatory reform from Congess. Former deputy Comptroller of the Currency Robert Bench, now senior fellow at the BU law school’s Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law, says overhaul is needed but it can wait. “The dangers and weaknesses in the credit […]
December 8, 2009 at 3:14 pm
With a key committee approving a gay-marriage bill, the New Jersey legislature faces a showdown when the issue hits the full state Senate Thursday. Law Professor Linda McClain, an authority on family law, says New Jersey lawmakers must beware of efforts to infuse the debate over civil marriages with religious arguments. “Religious opposition may well […]
December 7, 2009 at 6:13 pm
With Washington’s “pay czar” setting limits for executives of bailed out Wall Street firms, five high-ranking execs at AIG reportedly are ready to quit if their compensation is cut significantly. Law Professor Tamar Frankel, an authority on securities law and legal ethics, says maybe its time to both change the guard and change the mores […]
December 3, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Bank of America has received Fed approval to repay the $45 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program bailout loans it got from taxpayers over the past year. Former Federal Reserve Bank examiner Mark T. Williams, who teaches finance in the School of Management, says the payback might be too early. “Banks are beginning to earn their […]
December 3, 2009 at 1:17 pm
A GAO report to Congress about the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division during Bush years shows a significant drop in enforcement of several major antidiscrimination and voting rights laws compared with the Clinton years. Law Professor Robert Volk says the GAO report substantiates suspicions that the Bush administration had little interest in enforcing civil rights laws and had politicized […]
December 2, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Only eight months after General Motors’ new owners — the U.S. government — replaced the old CEO, the GM board canned that CEO in an effort to accelerate paying back taxpayers for the loans that kept the automaker afloat. School of Management Dean Lou Lataif, a former Ford Motor Company senior executive, says the moves […]
December 2, 2009 at 5:10 pm
After fumbling the probe into Bernie Madoff’s multibillion-dollar fraud, the Securities and Exchange Commission reportedly is ramping up insider-trading investigations. Law Professor Elizabeth Nowicki, a former SEC and Wall Street attorney, says traders at hedge funds, investment banks, and brokerages should beware. “The SEC has finally aggressively asserted itself — in what appears to be […]
December 2, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Google has agreed, as a concession to publishers of paid content news, to let them limit the number of free articles accessed through the Internet search engine. Journalism Department Chairman Lou Ureneck calls it a positive development for the media indusry, and ultimately for consumers. “The free traffic in articles that news organizations have put […]
