This short piece in the British Medical Journal, focusing on a fatty-food tax in Denmark, says that the evidence is equivocal. One problem is that consumers may respond to a fatty-food tax by substituting cheaper (but still fatty) foods for more expensive fatty foods. Another problem, believe it or not, is that consumers may buy […]
Category Archives: Uncategorized
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau student loan ombudsman, Rohit Chopra, has issued his first annual report required by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. Michelle Singletary of the Washington Post says that the report may portend a finanical crisis. The report's executive summary appears after the jump.
A coalition of business groups and labor unions sued in New York state court on Friday to stop New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's ban on the sale of sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces. Read the complaint and this press account. The complaint claims, among other things, that the regulations are arbitrary and irrational under New […]
That's Steven Pearlstein's characterization of the judiciary's attitude toward federal health and safety regulation in a column published today. Here's an excerpt discussing what Pearlstein views as a recent example: Their latest salvo came just before Labor Day, when a divided three-judge panel threw out rules requiring states to control the air pollution that wafts […]
As this article by Sheri Qualters explains, "Netflix Inc. has agreed to put closed captions on 100 percent of its streaming content within two years to settle a lawsuit filed by the National Association of the Deaf last year" under the Americans With Disabilities Act. This settlement could encourage other on-line video providers to follow […]
The purpose of the Airline Deregulation Act (ADA) of 1978 was to get federal and state governments out of the business of regulating the economic aspects of the commercial passenger airline industry. (The FAA still regulates the safety of air travel.) Mark Perry, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, has found that, despite a […]
by Jeff Sovern Yesterday I posted a special report on voting on consumer protection issues. I have been asked to remove the post to avoid the appearance of intervening in a political campaign. Accordingly, I have removed the post and do not plan to post the follow-up posts I had promised until after the election.
The Federal Trade Commission announced this morning that it has settled two cases concerning improper use of consumer credit information. The first settlement resolves FTC allegations that the consumer reporting company Equifax Information Services violated the FTC Act and the Fair Credit Reporting Act by selling lists of consumers who were late on their mortgage […]
Today's Washington Post has this article comparing President Obama's and former Governor Romney's positions and track record on a range of health care issues.