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Tennessee Law School Sues American Bar Association Over Accreditation Decision

December 22, 2011, 3:35 pm

A law school in Knoxville, Tenn., that was denied preliminary accreditation this month by the American Bar Association struck back today, suing the ABA in federal court, according to an announcement on the school’s Web site.

Lincoln Memorial University’s Duncan School of Law, whose stated mission is to make legal education accessible to students in Appalachia, accused the ABA of denying the school due process. The suit also contends that the ABA is violating federal antitrust laws by limiting the number of new law schools and, by extension, the number of new lawyers it approves. No one at the ABA was immediately available to comment. Some lawmakers and legal experts have urged the ABA to toughen its accreditation standards, in part because of the slump in legal hiring and what many consider a glut of new law graduates.

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  • stinkcat

    Of course Laurie conveniently forgets the dominant source of our total indebtedness.  Kotlikoff calculates the expected benefits to be paid under Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.  These are the programs that need to be addressed.

  • trendisnotdestiny

    You mean like:

    1) $3 Trillion dollar war on terror (Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan)
    2) $14 Trillion dollar hole blown in our economy from securitizing derivatives
    3)  Trillions of tax dollars lost to the Bush tax cuts (on the wealthy and corporations)

    These programs need to be addressed only because there has been a twenty year initiative to de-leverage these responsibilities using financial crisis and political ineptitude as a cover story.

    Stink, getting rid of the social safety net has a history and social context that predates our debt structure (but it certainly did escalate under G.W. Bush). 

    Sept 11, 2001   Our national debt was close to $5 trillion
    Sept 11, 2011   Our national debt was over $14 trillion (14 times our GDP) 

    This nearly debt tripled under 7 years of Bush and 3  of Obama…. 
    We should be asking:

    Who constructed this debt?
    Who is in charge of writing legislation that created the debt?
    What institutions are most responsible for this debt?  (ALEC or Bush Admin)
    What are the drivers of the existing debt?
    What are the drivers of future debt given the existing debt can be repaid?
    Who has profited the most in the last decade?
    Who has lost the most in the last decade?

    Maybe you could address these questions, Stinkcat
     

  • stinkcat

    “Stink, getting rid of the social safety net has a history and social context that predates our debt structure (but it certainly did escalate under G.W. Bush).  ”
    Just what part of the social safety net did GW Bush get rid of?

  • trendisnotdestiny

    Would you like the link to the first piece of 21st century financial legislation that was aimed at privatizing social security?

    Or would like you all the areas of his government that siphoned off existing resources and re-routed them from the public sector to private industry? 

      —  giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry drug benefit bill
      —  bankruptcy bill of 2005 which made it harder to file for chapter 7; rerouting to ch 13
      —  development of a homeland security apparatus (data mining, stealth information systems)
      —  outsourcing private contractors (war) to rebuild Iraq while Camden & Birmingham erode
      —  Bank bailouts (depleting the public’s wealth to rescue banks with poor senses of risk
      —  De-regulatory mechanism that allowed for massive control fraud

    I can go on all day if you like…  The social safety net is predicated upon people having jobs, paying taxes, and the efficient use of tax dollars to local communities.  The Bush administration took this mechanism away (largely) by starving states of federal tax revenues which had the cascading consequences of the combination of recessionary economics, outsourced jobs and misuse of tax dollars.  Hell, there was one point towards the end of his presidency where 47/50 states had substantial long-term debt. 

    For more on this: see David Cay Johnston, William Grieder or William K Black……

  • stinkcat

    George Bush privatized social security?  While he did propose a move towards privatization, it actually went nowhere.  So clearly with that example he did not dismantle the social safety net.

    While I agree with you that providing heavily subsidized prescription drugs was a stupid policy, it would seem that the government subsidizing prescription drugs to seniors is adding to the social safety net, not taking away from it.

    The rest of your comments are about various forms of corporate welfare, many of which are undesirable, but not a part of the social safety net, so for this discussion they are irrelevant.

  • 22259152

    Bush was a spender.  So what?  So were most of the politicians that came before him.

  • physicslib

    I’m sorry, but I’m terribly confused.  Our GDP is about 14 trillion, so our debt is about equal to our GDP, isn’t it?  What am I missing?

  • bhp35

    Another rant from the left; income inequality is the root of all evil.  I am afraid the problem is more complex than that simplistic analysis, but I agree that the current “solutions” being discussed in DC are insufficient to address the problem of US sovereign debt.  Taking to the streets is highly unlikely to yield any thing more than political theater.  The political issue is how to create a sustainable national budget that includes reducing the sovereign debt without concurrently creating havoc in the economy.  Both political parties have demonstrated an unwillingness and inability to seriously engage the problem or to creatively develop a solution.  The “debt crisis” may lead to the creation (development) of new political parties and perspectives.

  • trendisnotdestiny

    It went nowhere the first time around.  Then came Alan Simpson, FCIC & the Pete Petersen Institute.  That’s when it went from being a pet project that could get through congress to be a manufactured part of the downturn in our fabled economic disaster.  The problem became all of those onerous homeowners (always defaulting on the nice bankers generosity and preferential loan terms).  

    I think it is relevant to suggest that the social safety net (the buffer of middle class wealth, security and stability) was undermined more under Bush than any other president.  The only other option might be Clinton (repeal of glass steagall and the trend towards free trade agreements).  However, this becomes a parlor game.  Bush was clearly a symbol of business’ effort to privatize the country and globe under the auspices of US cowboy exceptionalism.

    Stink, you should be the first recognize that the demographic solicited for the benefit is the sales pitch.  The people who benefited from this legislation were the industry insiders, lobbyists and shareholders of the pharmaceutical industry.  I think we can agree that consolidating power among a few large conglomerates puts the social safety net under greater stress under trickle down economics.  Senior saving money was an ancillary benefit.

    The rest of my comments are not irrelevant. When monies are fungible and policies are purchased from the local congressman, you can draw a direct line between the internal rot of communities and the drying up of their public funding sources.  I honestly do not know how you can claim that corporate welfare is somehow unrelated to the decline of the public sector, social safety net and the agenda of the far right which has been to convert everything into private hands.  

  • trendisnotdestiny

    No, the degree of debt escalation from Bush to Obama is incrementally huge and morally vacuous

  • jimislew

    Kotlikoff’s math. He came up at $211 trillion after factoring in government obligation, military expenditures, and projected cost increases. Greece has 469 billion in public debt and about 300 billion in GDP per year. The US has about 14 trillion in public debt and 14 trillion in GDP per year. Yes, I’m using wikipedia but at least I’m citing my sources. 

  • skmarie17

    I have a feeling that the people in the current administration who engineered the Solyndra debacle, and took intentional steps at the last minute to screw you and I out of half a billion dollars, are just the ones to pull us out of this crisis.  Let them have all of our money, big business be damned.  New York Times readers – sorry you don’t get the reference.  Daily Show viewers – you will.

  • 12114159

    Can one of the ecowonks verify:  
    1) I recollect reading somewhere recently that the IMF estimates that the productive capacity of Greece to be roughly half of its GDP….the implication being the Greek GDP is fudged/inflated by a factor of 2.  If so, this would double Laurie’s ratio of Greek debt-to-(real?)GDP to 24.  I’m not sure 24 is any worse than 14 is any worse than 12, but how believable is Greek GDP?

    2) What would these ratios and their comparisons look like if one instead used Gross Private Product or Private Product Remainder instead of GDP?

  • Guest

    Hi Prof. Essig, I agree with you on this one. It’s sad that we’re swimming in debt. Both parties are guilty of hypocrisy, spending like drunk sailors when they are in power, pointing fingers like schoolmarms when they are out of power. God help us all.

    The best case scenario is that we just inflate our way out of the debt and suffer through Berlin-1920s-style price chaos, reminiscent of Argentina circa 1980, until something like a truly huge war jolts us out of her complacency and gets us all to rally and make true sacrifices. Maybe if the Nazi Party made a comeback? I’m grasping here, but I don’t know what else to suggest.

    Time to go the fridge, down a few Pabsts, and build an underground fortress for my daughter.

  • cwinton

    Relax … the Chinese own most of our debt and will simply show up one day and use it to buy out what’s left of the good old USA.  Then the jobs will come back, albeit at the wages the Chinese are used to paying.  The fat cats will do fine by becoming the errand boys for their Chinese overlords.  Hope all of you are busy learning one of the Chinese dialects (preferably Mandarin). 

  • stinkcat

    And with our savings rate so low we would have nobody to blame but ourselves.  

  • trendisnotdestiny

    Really? Savings rates.  Now, you are blaming individuals as the major explanation for one of the greatest thefts of public wealth ever documented in history?  Yes, our larger society has been led by consumer spending making almost 70% of GDP.  However, there are other issues obviated here. Wages have been flat, inflation in key commodities has exploded and stable jobs have been outsourced.  Blame ourselves?  No, I do not think so.

    Actually, if you watch Charles Ferguson’s movie: Inside Job, you might conclude that there is a lot of blame we could attach to “the experts” in the field of economics (see Mishkin or Glenn Hubbard).  Or we could examine a few of the economic-politico trolls that influence policy at large financial institutions (Summers, Geithner, Rubin, Bernanke, Greenspan, Dimon, Blankfein)

    Or if you followed the rise of the CDS (credit default swap), we might point our anger at Phil Gramm or his wife who headed the CFTC when the de-regulation of derivatives was being decided at the agency.  We might recognize the contribution of Blythe Masters.  Also, we might examine how our regulators and rating agencies have been captured.  Blame ourselves for not saving enough? No freaking way.

    Although, I concede to the trained economist Stinkcat that blaming everything on woulda, shoulda, coulda around savings is a powerful form of displacement.  It works. Despite this, one question ought to be: how much would people have to have saved to prepare themselves for:

    1) 50% reduction in their home prices (in locations across the country)
    2) Loss of a job or reduction in income
    3) Massive Inflation around food, gas, college, and other commodities
    4) Underfunded pensions (employer sponsored)
    5) $14 Trillion bailout of the banking sector

    Yeah, right?  John Q Public should have seen all this coming and put away an extra $100/month from their budget.  That would have solved everything!

  • stinkcat

    The chinese lend us money to fund our deficit and the reason they lend us money is because we won’t lend it to the government ourselves.  If we make ourselves dependent on chinese money because we refuse to save who can we blame but ourselves.  After all would the financial crisis have been as bad if people were making 20% down payments?  People would have less incentive to walk away when prices fall.  I agree the banks were stupid for making the low down payment loans, but the borrowers have to admit their own part of the folly.

  • trendisnotdestiny

    How many logistic circles would you like to create here Stink? 

    “Borrowers have to admit their own part of the folly”?  Please define borrowers.  Please define admit their own folly. 

    This is an absurd statement designed to displace responsibility onto undeserving groups by the culprits of theft.  It is caveat emptor except the game is rigged.  What do you want Stink, the 6 million home foreclosures (families) to go on Fox and apologize for being screwed out of their money as investment banks, credit rating agencies and federal regulators all collected hefty paychecks?

    This might be the most absurd digression on Brainstorm ever.  Stick to the point. First you say the problem is social security, medicare and medicaid.   I blow that out of the water.

    Next, you question whether Bush contributed to the erosion of the social safety net.  You are wrong.  He did.

    Then, you minimize corporate welfare as being irrelevant.

    Fourth, you create a distraction with our savings rate as if American’s financial problems occur in a vacuum of consumption only.  The facts do not support your thesis.  However, along the way you are certain to hedge a bit (on prescription drug bills, stupid banks etc.).  One wonders how more information you need?

    But in the end, you finish with the problem being China.  I am tired of the circular logic of blame-shifting.  At some point, you will have reconcile for yourself why you are so beholden to a system that has created mass foreclosures, bankruptcies and corruption.  Maybe it is as Upton Sinclair says: it is hard to get a man to see something, when he is getting paid to not see it.”

  • stinkcat

    TIND,

    So according to you people who buy houses they cannot afford with no money down are the victims of theft?  Did the banks hold guns to these people and make them sign the documents?  As I said the banks were equally stupid, they were stupid enough to lend the money.  And of course many corporate execs shafted their shareholders along the way.  But if people stuck to buying modest houses with putting reasonable down payments the crisis would be a lot smaller.

  • goxewu

    * Who has more resources–computers, personnel, expertise–to figure out whether a mortgage loan wll probably go south–the huge coporate lender, or the individual layperson buyer? I’d say the blame lies 95 percent with the banks, five percent with the overreaching borrowers. (Didn’t Nancy Reagan ever tell those guys, “Just say no”?)

    * How many top executives at the big lending institutions suffered the loss of their homes to foreclosure?

  • stinkcat

    How much intelligence does it take to realize that an option ARM with negative amortization is a really stupid idea?  

  • trendisnotdestiny

    Who has the most power, information and ability to persuade in this arrangement? 

    NINJA and No Doc loans?  Dismantling the Glass Steagall?  CFTC ruling to not regulate derivatives in 2000?  C’mon Stink, the FBI warned in 2004 that 80-90% of new mortgages were fraudulent?

    How do you explain the MERS system and the banking sector forging signatures and documents so they could foreclose on people?  Linda Green and robo-signing?  What about the securitization of these products, leverage and CDS (Credit Default Swaps).  This is high stakes insider information about a market that at the top had way more information than those at the bottom.  It is called informational asymmetry and it is the best way to extort profits out of a system and then blame it on individual actors (as if they should have known).

    I cannot think of a process more offensive than the last 10 years of predatory lending in the mortgage, credit card and alternative banking sectors.  This is organized financial crime at its most lethal.  This is not the America I grew up in, but it is the one we find ourselves in now (in debt up to our eyeballs). 

    Thanks Milton Friedman, the invisible hand of the market has got its hand up the Statue of Liberty’s ass. 

  • trendisnotdestiny

    My point exactly.  Those who are most educated/sophisticated share the most responsibility in unleashing toxic shit into the public domain.  How much intelligence does that take?

    Since I was in the industry for a decade, I know what the response to this is.  Most will say they were intelligent because they made a lot of money.  The problem is that:

    1) Making $$ at the expense of millions is not equivalent to being smart
    2) They will want their $$$ back (as is the case when something is stolen)
    3)  The business model encroaches into our lives, people get pissed

    Stink, how much intelligence does it take for Ivy league business school grads to steal the lunch money from average, trusting middle class families?  Negative amortization might as well be in Russian to these folks.  There is already so much data out there about the level of fraud, I don’t have any earthly clue why you are still hammering the public like Rick Santelli highly caffeinated?

    When it comes to finances, people usually respond to things that they do not know with either boredom or fear (Henderson, 2009).  When it is very complex, they regress into more of child-like state of fantasy (promulgated by the PR machines in the media).  You can almost hear the words: “trust me” uttered from Wall Street while they steal your pension.

    You are right, individuals do have a responsibility to know the products that they buy.  You are right, they should be able to distinguish between the products, but should is only valid in an ideal world.  However, Goxewu is right.  This amounts to such a small percentage in comparison to all those who have inside information.  Read David Callahan.  We live in a corrupt culture. 

    We live in a culture that espouses capitalism and free markets from the highest air craft carrier, but yet we don’t have more than 2 states who mandate financial literacy standards in K-12.  We have two systems: one for the permanent underclass under expansion and one for those who are privileged.   Use your goddamn imagination.  If people can make money, then they will (even at the expense of those who know less).  The last twenty years of fraud, embezzlement, off-shoring and orgiastic spending has taught us that.

  • goxewu

    Most, if not all, of the “negative amortization” that occurred during the housing bubble that led to the meltdown of 2008 was caused by the decrease in the value of the home. Most, if not all, of the negative amortization was either foreseen by the lender (again, a corporation with computers, personnel, and expertise supposedly devoted to analyzing the probable fate of its loans) and not disclosed to the borrower, or not foreseen by the lender who should have foreseen it (do I have to repeat the stuff about corporate resources?).

    And again, how many top executives at the big lending institutions suffered the loss of their homes to foreclosure?

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