Photo: Brand X Pictures

-Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary outlines her hopes for the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which will be keeping tabs on the credit bureaus starting September 30. Among her requests: A few specifics about what it actually means when one of the three major agencies — Experian, Equifax and TransUnion — say they’re going to look into a customer inquiry.

- A California man is suing Hyundai because he claims an Elantra he bought didn’t live up to the 40 mpg promise the company makes. Louis Bird’s suit is the second filed in recent months against an automaker over mileage claims. Testing methods have been called into question. Is your car living up to its promise?

-States are in deep financial trouble according to a report from the State Budget Crisis Task Force, which analyzed six large states for their latest independent report. Calling the situation a “willingness to ‘unbuild’ state government in a way that has not been done before,” the report highlights the loss of state revenues, the need to implement new healthcare programs, and other fiscal issues.

-Residential construction projects jumped 6.9 percent in June to 760,000, the highest rate since October 2008. Gains were seen across both single-family houses and apartments. We’re also seeing more new home sales, more spending on construction, and higher interest in buying. However, even with gains the housing market is still soft and consumers are having a hard time qualifying for loans and making down payments.

-Are you on Google+? Or are you one of the (hundreds of) millions sticking with Facebook? Well, you might want to reconsider. Turns out the folks on Google+ are more satisfied according to the new American Customer Satisfaction Index, which tallied the level of user happiness across 230 social media companies. Still, there are far fewer people on Google+.
 

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