Do you think that some food marketers (mis)label junky foods to try to make them seem healthy? Jennifer Pomeranz does, and she's written A Comprehensive Strategy to Overhaul FDA Authority for Misleading Food Labels to explain how, in her view, the Food and Drug Administration can make food labels less misleading, consistent with the First […]
Author Archives: Brian Wolfman
We've posted here and here about how consumers can try to avoid harm from the Target (and similar) data breaches. Perhaps the best medicine is putting a security freeze on your credit report. Here, Michelle Singletary describes that process in some detail.
Those are the subjects of Cost-Benefit Analysis of Financial Regulation: Case Studies and Implications, by law professor John Coates. Here is the abstract: Some members of Congress, the D.C. Circuit, and legal academia are promoting a particular, abstract form of cost-benefit analysis for financial regulation: judicially enforced quantification. How would CBA work in practice, if […]
Perhaps sign-ups on the Affordable Care Act's exchanges are lagging, but, as explained in this article by Sabrina Tavernise, in states that have accepted the Act's medicaid expansion, the Act is providing health insurance to many people who previously lacked it. "In West Virginia," for example, "where the Democratic governor agreed to expand Medicaid eligibility, the […]
Says the Supreme Court this morning. No surprise there. Here's the first paragraph of Justice Sotomayor's unanimous opinion: Under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA or Act), defendants in civil suits may remove “mass actions” from state to federal court. CAFA defines a “mass action” as “any civil action . . . in […]
The federal government's faulty Affordable Care Act (ACA) website — and similar problems on some state-run ACA websites — may not be the biggest problem facing the ACA's implementation. As this article by Jonathan Easley explains, a new survey conducted by Enroll America, "a nonprofit with close ties to the Obama administration that is aiming […]
On his blog at U.S. PIRG, Ed Mierzwinski expounds on the Target data breach in a post entitled Target says "Oops, 70-110 million consumers hacked." He points out that 70 to 100 million, "not the original 40 million customers, had their credit or debit card numbers hacked in December (or possibly at other times). Even […]
Go here or click on the embedded video below to watch Jon Stewart's two-part interview of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Richard Cordray. (The second part of the interview starts right after the first part ends.) The Daily Show Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook
In light of the Target Stores security breach — the theft of around 40 million credit and debit card records from Target — the National Consumer Law Center, Consumer Action, and U.S. PIRG have issued these tips for consumers about dealing with security breaches. It includes reminders that (1) consumers' liability for unauthorized credit-card and […]
If you missed the Senate hearing held in mid-December by Sen. Al Franken on the Arbitration Fairness Act, view it here or by clicking on the embedded video below. Go to approximately 1:54:30 (1 hour, 54 minutes, and 30 seconds) to watch a powerful exchange between Franken and one of pro-arbitration witnesses.