Available from Amazon here. I have only just started reading it, but here's a description from Chris: FTC Privacy Law and Policy is a broad-ranging primer on the FTC’s consumer protection mission. It is the first hundred-year history of the agency’s consumer protection activities, and it links consumer cases to modern internet privacy efforts. The book offers […]
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Check out today's outstanding piece in Slate, subtitled "What it’s like making less than $13 an hour to serve $13 beers at one of the biggest games on Earth." It covers not only the author's experience behind the counter, but also the economics of stadium financing and the extraordinary lengths to which many of the concession […]
"We find that the benefits to economic growth are even smaller than those projected with full-employment models, and are negative for Japan and the United States. More important, we find that the TPP will likely lead to losses in employment and increases in inequality," summarize the authors. The report, called "Trading Down: Unemployment, Inequality and Other Risks of the Trans-Pacific […]
In 2006, in the federal government's RICO litigation against major players in the tobacco industry, U.S. District Judge Glady Kessler issued an opinion containing over 4,000 findings of facts. She found that the government had shown by overwhelming evidence that the industry had maintained an unlawful racketeering enterprise and had lied about the health effects […]
This shouldn't be news to regular readers, but last Friday's report reflects the risks associated with for-profit colleges. The report highlights high costs and low job placement rates. The Washington Post has the story.
A recent paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research points to a depressing feature of our society — the economic circumstances of a person's birth exert a pretty strong influence on where they'll end up. Or, as the headline in FiveThirtyEight puts it in its headline describing the trend: "Rich Kids Stay Rich, Poor Kids Stay […]
BBC News reports: HSBC has reached a $470m [] settlement with the US government and states related to dubious mortgage lending and foreclosure practices that contributed to the financial crisis. The agreement includes a $100m fine and $370m in consumer relief to borrowers. Investigations began in 2010 after HSBC was found to be signing off […]
Read this essay by acting FDA commissioner Stephen Ostroff on what the FDA is doing to get safe and effective generic drugs on the market promptly. The agency's efforts are important because the cost of generic drugs generally is far less than the cost of brand-name drugs. In particular, as Ostroff explains, the entry of a "first […]
Financially speaking, that is. Last Friday's episode of NPR's Planet Money goes inside the telemarketing scam based on the premise that workers can work from home and make a great living. The episode includes audio from an actual sales pitch to a woman taken in by the scam. The tactics are awful, but revealing. And […]
Despite the uptick in jobs over the last couple of years, one key respect in which the economic recovery is weak has been its failure to raise workers' wages. This week's January jobs report from the Labor Department is more encouraging on that front, reports the NYT: Last month, average hourly earnings rose by 0.5 percent, […]