David Dayen has the story in The American Prospect. Here's an excerpt, but the entire story is worth a look: It may seem axiomatic, but it’s rarely stated out loud: Businesses that rely on poor people need the economic system to keep churning out poor people to survive. You almost have to applaud the payday […]
Here, in The Conversation, by Anthony Dukes, Professor of Marketing, University of Southern California and Yi Zhu, Associate Professor of Marketing, University of Minnesota. Excerpt: Many complaint processes are actually designed to help companies retain profits by limiting the number of customers who can successfully resolve their complaints. Only by insisting to talk to a manager or […]
An investigation by Senator Cantwell's oversight staff found that a "series of high-profile failures to effectively recall dangerous products has called into question the ability of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to adequately protect American consumers from unsafe and defective products. An extensive review by U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation […]
The Washington Post today reports on the expected effect of California's consumer privacy law, which was enacted in June 2018 and takes effect on January 1, 2020. The law aims to protect consumers from having their information sold without their knowledge or consent. The article — Calif consumer privacy law can affect businesses across U.S. […]
The New York Times has a lengthy piece today on location tracking through smartphones. Every minute of every day, everywhere on the planet, dozens of companies — largely unregulated, little scrutinized — are logging the movements of tens of millions of people with mobile phones and storing the information in gigantic data files. The Times […]
An article in The Atlantic yesterday reported on apps that offer "advances" on salary. Although the companies that offer the apps insist that the advances are not "loans," the article explains that the companies look a lot like payday lenders. The "advances" come with many of the same problems as payday loans, problems that have […]
An article in Slate today addresses the Supreme Court's cases greatly restricting the availability of class actions as a recourse for the powerless against the powerful, largely through an atextual expansion of the Federal Arbitration Act. As the article notes, "[t]he swift decline of class actions over the last decade is regularly framed as an […]
That's the name of this article by law profs John Brooks and David Gamage. Here is the abstract: Wealth tax reform proposals are playing a major role in the 2020 presidential campaign. However, some opponents of these wealth tax reform proposals have claimed that a wealth tax would be unconstitutional. Other prominent critics have argued […]
"The EEOC voted 2-1 to rescind its position that mandatory arbitration agreements that keep discrimination claims out of court clash with the civil rights laws the agency enforces." Read about it here.
Here. Excerpt: Jimmy Kennedy earned $13 million during his nine-year career as a player in the National Football League. He was the kind of person most banks would be happy to have as a client. But when Mr. Kennedy tried to become a “private client” at JPMorgan Chase, an elite designation that would earn him […]