The consumer advocacy community often favors regulations aimed at protecting consumer and worker health and safety and establishing employment rights. Business interests–and the politicians that support those interests–are constantly telling us that regulations–all regulations–are "job killers." But where's the evidence? A conference held yesterday and today at Penn Law School addresses the question of the […]
Author Archives: Brian Wolfman
This article by Marc Lifsher explains: By more than a 2-to-1 margin, California voters favor an initiative to require food manufacturers and retailers to label fresh produce and processed foods that contain genetically engineered ingredients. With less than six weeks until election day, Proposition 37 is supported by 61% of registered voters and opposed by […]
This AP story explains that that 22.4 million [U.S.] households, or 19 percent, had college debt in 2010. That is double the share in 1989, and up from 15 percent in 2007, just prior to the recession — representing the biggest three-year increase in student debt in more than two decades. … that 22.4 million […]
On Monday, Allison posted about the 9th Circuit's grant of rehearing en banc in Kilgore v. Key Bank. The question is whether the Federal Arbitration Act preempts a California-law rule that says that claims for a so-called "public injunction" cannot be forced into arbitration (even if an arbitration agreement's terms puts those claims there). The […]
Today's Blog of the Legal Times has this interesting post about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's use of investigatory demands on potential enforcement targets in the financial services industry.
As explained in this LA Times story, "[m]ore than 3.5 million Discover credit card customers will share $200 million in refunds in the wake of a federal investigation [by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the FDIC] that determined the bank tricked people into signing up for payment protection plans and other add-on services." The […]
In this Wall St. Journal op-ed, Congressman Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) says that the Consumer Financial Services Bureau is not transparent about how it plans to spend its money. He also says that the CFPB pays its employees too much money: A review of the bureau's salaries as of Aug. 28, 2012, reveals that approximately 60% […]
We explained here that after the Supreme Court threw out the nationwide employment discrimination class action against Wal-Mart on behalf of hundreds of thousands of women, the class lawyers pushed ahead with smaller class actions and in helping women process individual claims against Wal-Mart. And now, district judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco has rebuffed […]
Read this extensive post at Naked Capitalism entitled "'The Drugs Don't Work': How the Medical-Industrial Complex Systematically Suppresses Negativess Studies." Here's a very brief excerpt: [Although] the overt corruption of science at work in the drug arena … comes to light from time to time, often in the context of litigation, the lay public is […]
As you may know, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has recently named its Consumer Advocacy Board. Go here to read its members' names and bios. The Board will have its first public meeting in St. Louis on September 27. CFPB head Richard Cordray will speak (and presumably introduce the advisory board). Here's how the CFPB […]