Coming soon to a TV screen near you: An ad from the Chamber of Commerce exhorting viewers to tell their Senators to block the CFPB's arbitration rule so lawyers will stop bringing lawsuits over coffee. I kid you not.
Never mind that the rule applies to rip-offs by banks, credit card companies, and other financial institutions, not coffee shops. Even though the vilification of the hot coffee lawsuit was long ago debunked (here's the Reader's Digest version if you don't have much time!), the Chamber evidently still thinks all it has to do is mention coffee lawsuits and the public will mindlessly support any effort to eliminate the right to hold corporations legally accountable when they engage in financial fraud.
The ad's absurd series of non sequiturs (images of coffee cups followed by attacks on an "out-of-control government agency" illustrated by sinister footage of an office building–ooh, scary!) reaches its climax when the words "Takes away arbitration" appear on the screen, as if taking away arbitration were as bad as taking away our precious right to drink coffee. Somehow I doubt if most people have the same warm, fuzzy feelings about arbitration that they have about a good cup of joe. Let's hope not, anyway.
