by Brian Wolfman Need another reason to avoid next year's long, self-congratulatory Oscars' awards? How about that the movie industry is the principal lobbyist for, and the prime beneficiary of, government largesse that may be eating away at your kids' school funding or support for your local fire fighters? We know that tax-paid consumer services […]
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Sarah Kliff reports here that Researchers combed through data available from the 15 states that publicly post all requests for rate increases in the individual market. They found that, in 2009, 74 percent of all requests came in above 10 percent. By 2012, that number had fallen to 35 percent. Preliminary data for 2013, which […]
by Brian Wolfman Think about these things: The "tax gap." In 2006, the "tax gap" — the difference between the taxes owed by Americans and the taxes that they pay — was a stunning $450 billion. The IRS then went out and enforced the tax laws and recovered $65 billion, making the net tax gap […]
by Jeff Sovern Today's Times Haggler column, Calling Out the Robocaller, written by David Segal, and about a troublesome telemarketer, Your Financial Ladder, operated by the Helfenstines, includes an ominous discussion about the effectiveness of a Florida consumer protection agency: [A] spokesman for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services says it recently started an investigation […]
Read this story by Jessica Silver-Greenberg. She reports that just as 15 U.S. states have banned payday loans, some of the world's biggest banks are playing a key role in facilitating the loans in a way that aims to evade those states' laws. Here's an excerpt: Major banks have quickly become behind-the-scenes allies of Internet-based […]
by Paul Alan Levy Our experience at Public Citizen has been that objectors to proposed class action settlements can often expect a hostile reception. Both named plaintiffs and defendants – and their lawyers — generally have a common stake in getting the settlement approved, and they have developed a relationship with the judge already. The […]
Last year, Charles Schwab modified its customer account agreements to prohibit class-action suits and bar consolidation of individual arbitrations. FINRA — the financial industry regulatory authority — then charged Schwab with violating FINRA's rules. As we previously reported, Schwab challenged FINRA's action in district court, but the court dismissed the suit for failure to exhaust […]
by Brian Wolfman After the Supreme Court's decision last June largely upholding the Affordable Care Act (ACA), we asked this question: Which states, if any, will back out of the Medicaid expansion? As you will recall, the Supreme Court ruled 7-to-2 that the states have the right to back out of the ACA's large Medicaid […]
Read this piece by Jessie Eisinger of ProPublica. Eisinger begins by noting that there's a lot of discussion about the revolving door between industry and agency appointees. He refers to one instance that's gotten a lot of press: Mary Jo White's appointment to head the SEC. Aftter serving "as a tough United States attorney," Eisigner […]
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray spoke today at the the CFPB Advisory Board's first meeting of 2013. He discussed the CFPB's current priorities, including unequal access to credit for minorities, deceptive marketing of consumer financial products, and debt traps. He also touched on the Bureau's efforts to be transparent, to respond to consumer […]