Ralph Nader explains in this op-ed that Congress should impose a small tax on trades of stocks and other financial products, such as derivatives. The tax would never exceed 1/2 of 1 percent of the value of the traded product, with the hardest hit on short-term investments. Here's an excerpt: In the debate over the […]
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We've covered the issue of the nation's huge student loan debt many times before. Many people are way behind on their payments and nearly all of the loans are made by or guaranteed by the federal government. This Wall Street Journal article explains the current situation. Here's an excerpt that describes differences between student loan debt […]
A UCC omnibus bill being introduced in the New York Legislature would revise UCC Articles 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, and 9, to embody the latest UCC Model Versions. If you have views about particular advantages and disadvantages to adoption, or suggested revisions, Norman Silber would be interested in knowing about them. Please email him at Norman.Silber@Hofstra.edu
In the fiscal cliff negotiations, a lot is on the table. One policy formally viewed as untouchable but now up for discussion, the Washington Post reports, is the mortgage-interest deduction, which is designed to encourage home ownership but has been criticized as responsible for inflating home prices and benefiting the wealthy disproportionally. The Post story […]
by Brian Wolfman One of the nice things about the Internet is that it brings down the cost of communicating with the public, potentially democratizing free speech. At fairly low cost, consumers can establish websites that criticize big businesses. Sometimes those big businesses don't like that and sue the owners of the critical websites. Often […]
As explained here, the Environmental Protection Agency has banned BP from future federal contracts in light of the company's "lack of business integrity" evidenced by its misconduct surrounding the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The ban is temporary and will be lifted when BP, according to the EPA, "can provide sufficient evidence […]
This article by Richard Chen provides a bunch of tips about how to protect your privacy on the Internet. Among other things, he suggests forgoing Google for DuckDuckGo, which claims that it doesn't send information about you to other sites (as Google does) and doesn't collect personal information about you (as Google does) — for […]
Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court in D.C. has issued this this major opinion imposing corrective remedies in the federal government's 13-year-old RICO suit against the tobacco industry. Judge Kessler has issued a separate order mandating that the tobacco companies publish "corrective statements" on five topics "on which the Court found they had […]
by Brian Wolfman Thousands of our readers follow the CL&P Blog by receiving a daily email with the full text of each post. That function has been "down" since around November 20. Thanks to the excellent technological sleuthing of CL&P contributor and computer geek Greg Beck, the problem has been fixed! Today, those of you […]
In case you missed it, last week the Washington Post had this interesting article describing a meeting between President Obama and seven of the world's most prominent economists. The meeting took place over 13 months ago. Nearly all of the economists told the President that the government hadn't done enough to effectively forgive the mortgage […]