If you think so, Chrysler has a deal for you: a discount in exchange for agreeing to binding arbitration. Of course, if there's a problem with the car, then you may end up out way more than $200, and the notoriously business-friendly arbitration system is unlikely to help with that. This story on Jalopnik explains. […]
Author Archives: Scott Michelman
The Washington Post reports: The District would become the most generous place in the country for a worker to take time off after giving birth or to care for a dying parent under a measure supported by a majority of the D.C. Council. Under the legislation that will be introduced Tuesday, almost every part-time and […]
Yesterday, the U.S. and 11 other nations from North and South America, Asia, and the South Pacific reached agreement on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), a huge trade deal years in the making. What does the text say? That's still a secret — the New York Times reports that the 30 chapters of the agreement […]
…is the first part of a four-part investigative report by WAMU (Washington D.C.'s NPR affiliate) about exploitative lending practices in the Commonwealth, including how a lender transforms a loan with a capped interest rate into one without. Part I, which aired yesterday, is here. Part II aired this morning and is available here. The remainder […]
The 2010 Dodd-Frank law prescribed 390 rule-making requirements and 249 now have finalized rules, while another 58 have rule proposals, according to a study by the law firm Davis Polk. That means about one fifth of the required rules haven't even been proposed. You can read about it in the WSJ (subscription required, unfortunately), here. […]
The Washington Post reports on a new study in the American Journal of Epidemiology supporting the conclusion that "The most disadvantaged are more likely — and have grown even more likely over time — to die in car crashes than people who are well-off." Indeed, "the inequality of traffic fatalities is getting worse, even as it […]
… reports the Times: [T]he soda industry is winning the policy battles over the future of its product. But the bigger picture is that soda companies are losing the war. Even as anti-obesity campaigners like [Philadelphia Mayor Michael A.] Nutter have failed to pass taxes, they have accomplished something larger. In the course of the fight, […]
What does a Better Business Bureau rating mean? Not much, according to a expose from CNNMoney posted yesterday. The article gives the following examples of businesses that sported an A+ rating on BBB: A mortgage broker charged by federal regulators with discriminating against minority borrowers. A financial firm accused in an ongoing federal lawsuit of […]
Tomorrow, former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship will stand trial in federal court in West Virginia for allegedly lethal violations of federal mine safety rules. From a Slate preview of the case: Known for his in-your-face policies and politics, Blankenship is accused of creating a ruthless work culture that skimped on safety and employee well-being […]
As fivethirtyeight.com documented earlier this week, in spite of Obamacare’s extensions of health care coverage to millions of previously uninsured Americans, 33 million still don’t have coverage. Who are those people and why aren’t they covered? Some are noncitizen immigrants; others fall into the “Medicaid gap” (referring to the range of “incomes that were too […]