What happened to good ol' American free-market competition when it comes to cable and internet service? Why do the Brits have choices while most Americans are stuck with our single local provider, which accordingly has little incentive to improve price or service? In an illuminating podcast from earlier this month, including interviews with key U.S. […]
Author Archives: Scott Michelman
Seeking to protect California consumers from the type of "non-disparagement clause" infamously wielded against John and Jen Palmer in the KlearGear case, California Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez has introduced a bill to ban contractual fine print that restricts consumers' ability to share feedback about the companies with whom they do business. Good stuff. Meanwhile, […]
Worth reading, in Slate. An excerpt: A higher minimum wage helps reduce the structural advantages large corporations have over small businesses, and that in turn helps create a context where high-quality independent businesses can thrive by overdelivering compared to our better-capitalized, but mediocre, big competitors. . . . If the minimum wage were raised high […]
In a resounding victory for both the First Amendment right of access to court records and for consumers, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held today in Company Doe v. Public Citizen that a district court erred in sealing records and allowing the use of a pseudonym in a challenge to the […]
As the Post explains, The Social Security Administration announced Monday that it will immediately cease efforts to collect on taxpayers’ debts to the government that are more than 10 years old. The action comes after The Washington Post reported that the government was seizing state and federal tax refunds that were on their way to […]
With poignant timing (as Kansas City mourns three deaths yesterday from a shooting spree by a KKK-linked gunman at a Jewish community center, and the nation this week marks the anniversaries of the Boston Marathon bombing and the Oklahoma City bombing), the Washington Post has a thought-provoking opinion piece from Justice Stevens, one of the […]
A fascinating talk here today from Acting Chairman Adler, who displayed a wide range of expertise and institutional memory about the CPSC's history, jurisdiction, and actions. Although his outlook is generally pro-regulatory, he also pointed to the importance of protecting small businesses from overly onerous regulations; he came across as neither inflexible nor one-sided in […]
…is the title of this informative story from WSJ's MarketWatch about a new study from the Pew Charitable Trusts released today. The takeaway is that although most consumers don't read banking-contract fine print (the median length of which is 44 pages), more banks are adding verbiage to their checking account fine print that prevents customers […]
As the Baltimore Sun reports, "Maryland's minimum wage will rise to $10.10 by July 2018 under a bill granted final passage by state lawmakers Monday. The measure goes to Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley for his promised signature." For a good discussion of the political debate over the effects of the minimum wage, listen to this […]
That's the question implicit in today's NYT report on tests of child car seats run by our friends at Consumer Reports. The Times explains: A new testing procedure, said by the magazine to represent an investment of more than a half-million dollars and over two years of work, was developed to evaluate the crash protection […]