That's the name of this report from the Institute of Medicine (eds. Lawrence Gostin and Gillian Buckley). The Food and Drug Administration and similar regulatory agencies around the world seek to protect consumers by approving drugs only if they are reasonably safe and effective for their intended uses. But that objective is undermined when bad […]
Author Archives: Brian Wolfman
This report — entitled Dangerous Liasons — published on Monday by the Project on Government Oversight strongly suggests that the Securities and Exchange Commission has been compromised in its duty to protect the public by the influence exerted by former SEC employees now in private industry. Here is the report's overview (some of which continues […]
That's the topic of this sobering article by Michael Fletcher. The econony bottom out about four years ago, but official unemployment rates — which don't count the millions who have given up looking for work — are still really high. That rate is 9.2% in North Carolina, and yet, because of what legislators claim is […]
We have posted here and here on the new FTC study showing that Americans' credit reports are often inaccurate in harmful ways. Now, read the study itself — all 370 pages of it. And take a look at this article on the study by Todd Ruger. There, Ira Rheingold, the head of the National Association of […]
Earlier, we posted on the "60 Minutes" report concerning the error-prone, law-breaking credit reporting industry. U.S. PIRG's Ed Mierzwinki has this post on what needs to be done to reform the system.
by Brian Wolfman The CFPB cop appears to be on the beat. Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau published a bulletin advising mortgage companies about their legal obligations to protect consumers during loan transfers between mortgage servicers. CFPB is telling mortgage companies that, when handing off the processing of loans, mortgage servicers should not lose […]
A couple weeks ago, the editors of The Nation published this essay urging President Obama to use his executive authority to "push a progressive agenda." The essay discussed 20 policies on the environment, the economy, civil rights, workers' rights, and other topics both domestic and international that the authors believe that the President can, and […]
We have reported many times on the error-prone credit reporting industry and the industry's violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Go, for example, here, here, and here. Today, the Federal Trade Commission issues a eight-year study of the industry showing that up to 40 million Americans have a mistake on their credit report. Twenty […]
In letters to President Obama and the congressional leadership, a coalition of consumer advocacy groups — such as the Consumer Federation of America, the National Consumer Law Center, Consumers Union, Public Citizen, and U.S. PIRG — have called for the implementation of a consumer-protection agenda during the President's second term. The agenda is quite detailed and […]
by Brian Wolfman It's nice to see the FTC shutting down unscrupulous, outrageous debt collectors. In this complaint filed last month, the FTC charged a debt collection company called Goldman Schwartz and related defendants with a variety of violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act. As explained in […]