…is the title of this NYT article, which puts stark numbers on the problem of income inequality in the U.S. over the last ten years. Not surprisingly, the housing crisis has played a central role.
Author Archives: Scott Michelman
USA Discounters, reports the Washington Post in conjunction with ProPublica, is a retailer that takes advantage of service members' transience and locks them into cycle of debt using a venue-selection clause in their contracts that permits the business to litigate against customers in southeastern Virginia, no matter where in the world those customers are stationed. […]
According to The Hill, The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced Wednesday they are taking action against dozens of companies that they allege falsely promised to help distressed homeowners prevent foreclosure and lower their monthly payments. Several state regulators joined the two federal agencies in suing more than 40 law […]
We’ve covered on the blog several examples of troubling non-disparagement clauses preventing consumers from speaking out about their bad experiences with businesses (for instance, see here and here). From our experience, these seem to be cropping up more and more. I’m pleased to report on a counterexample. The company Madwire Media, a marketing firm, used […]
A report issued today by Pennsylvania's auditor general revealed the troubling (if not necessarily surprising) degree to which that state's Department of Environmental Protection has been outmatched by the pace of gas drilling in the state. The report, covering the period 2009-12, portrays a department that is both underresourced and slow or even unwilling to […]
Just hours after a panel the D.C. Circuit held (over a dissent) that the ACA could be read just one way — to forbid health-care premium subsidies in health-care exchanges run by the federal government rather than a state — a panel of the Fourth Circuit (which covers the states of Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, […]
In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has struck down an IRS rule providing subsidies for participants in health-care exchanges in states where the exchanges were established by the federal government, not the states. In other words, according to the court, although Congress intended that the […]
The National Law Journal has an analysis of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as it hits the three-year mark. Among the highlights: Agency lawyers filed at least 20 enforcement actions in the past year (compared with two in the CFPB’s first year), racking up a series of major settlements. Among them: Bank of America in […]
As NPR reports this month, the U.S. economy has finally recovered the number of jobs it had as of January 2008. But they didn't all go back to the places where they were lost. Check out this fascinating graph (and accompanying story) to learn which states rebounded, which didn't, and why.
Manufacturers of home appliances (like Whirlpool) have been sued for misusing the EPA's "Energy Star" label to suggest that products were more energy efficient than they actually were. The industry response has been to try to get Congress to ban such suits. This quote from Shannon Baker-Branstetter of Consumers Union (the publisher of Consumer Reports) […]