Creditworthy consumers can face difficulties accessing credit if they lack a credit record that is treated as "scorable" by widely used credit scoring models. These consumers include those who are "credit invisible," meaning that they do not have a credit record maintained by one of the nationwide consumer reporting agencies (NCRAs). They also include those who have a credit record that contains either too little information or information that is deemed too old to be reliable.

Lack of internet access appears to have a stronger relationship to credit invisibility than does the presence of a bank branch: While younger adults residing near bank branches in highly urban areas used credit cards as entry products more often than those residing further away, overall we found little relationship between distance to the nearest branch and the incidence of credit invisibility. In contrast, our research did find that many credit products are originated through online means, causing credit invisibility to be more prevalent in areas with less internet access.

Another Federal Communications Commission meeting is in the books with no final decisions on the 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Services (CBRS) band. When asked about the timing of the 3.5 GHz item, FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly deferred to the chairman, who determines those things. Separately during Sept 26's press briefing, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel answered the same reporter’s question with a decidedly different tone, but one that reiterated her previous level of frustration at the lack of movement on the issue. "We have a serious deficit of midband spectrum in the United States. South Korea, Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain have already set out midband spectrum for auction. China has already cleared airwaves as well,” she said. “But somehow, we are sitting here many years after our initial proposal in the 3.5 GHz band and we’re stuck in some kind of bureaucratic quagmire,” she said. “I do not understand. We should have moved ahead a long time ago. I don’t have any insight, but I am exasperated. We should have done this a long time ago.”

Former President Barack Obama urged private businesses to come out of “isolation” and to engage more with governments when developing new products and services to avoid problems like those challenging Facebook. Obama told business leaders that “you cannot separate the business environment from the political and social environment.” “A good example is Facebook,” Obama said, referring to the public relations pummeling the social media company has received following US intelligence service reports that Facebook was a conduit for Russian election meddling in 2016. He said he genuinely believed the power of social media to connect people “is something that is potentially extraordinarily valuable and can be positive.” “But what is also true is that those systems were built in isolation (by private companies) detached from potential social consequences,” he added. 

Obama said he hoped to see business leaders engaging “more directly” with governments to keep politicians posted on new products and applications, but also as an acknowledgment that “there’s going to be issues involved” with technological innovations. “Too often, at least in the United States, there’s a tendency for business leaders to say, ‘Let’s just avoid the government as much as we can.’” “That strategy can work for a time, but eventually — as I think Facebook has now discovered — you’re going to have to engage,” the former president said.

The Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) and the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB) are challenging the Federal Communications Commission's proposed incubator program, petitioning the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to review one element of the program—its comparability standards of ownership rule waivers—which they said was arbitrary and capricious and an abuse of discretion, and thus illegal. MMTC and NABOB support the underlying goal of helping diversify media ownership and the incubator program specifically. But they have problems with the FCC's definition of "comparable" radio market. A "small" market with 45-plus full power radio stations qualifies for incubation, while a "comparable" market could be New York because it also has 45-plus stations, a point MMTC and NABOB also made in their filing.

Among the hundreds of people waiting to visit Mahatma Gandhi one day was a mother who sought help in battling her son’s obsession with eating sugar. When it was their turn in line, instead of immediately counseling the boy, Gandhi asked the pair to come back in two weeks. Following a two-hour wait on the day of their return, the anxious mother repeated her request. Gandhi promptly spoke with her son and the boy agreed to work on breaking his sugar fixation. The mother expressed her gratitude, of course, but remained puzzled as to why Gandhi refused to counsel her son during their first visit. His response, for me, represents one of the most teachable moments in world history. Gandhi shared that he could not initially talk to the boy about his sugar habit because Gandhi himself was eating sugar at that time. How could he legitimately speak to her son about not eating sugar, Gandhi reportedly asked, if he had yet to ‘take the journey himself ’? This powerful lesson, from an encounter many years ago and thousands of miles away, aligns so well with my belief that the best advice comes from people who themselves have walked the path one is about to take. The Media Democracy Agenda: The Strategy and Legacy of FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps appraises the strategies and priorities of one of the Federal Communications Commission’s most consequential members, a commissioner who sought to change the agency by making it more accountable to the American people.

[Mignon L. Clyburn served as a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission]