Interesting article from Brad Plumer here.
by Jeff Sovern So says a study from the Glassgow Centre for Population Health, Public Health Implications of Payday Lending. The study's "key messages:" • Payday lending is a contemporary public health concern: the vulnerability of the populations involved, the urgency, scale and growth of the issue coupled with the corrosive nature of personal debt and financial […]
That's the topic of Taxing Sugar Sweetened Beverages to Lower Childhood Obesity by Sarah Wetter and James Hodge. Here is the abstract: Consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) contributes to multiple health problems including obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay, especially among children. Excise taxation has been proven efficacious in changing purchasing behaviors related to tobacco use with resulting […]
The Federal Trade Commission announced this week three settlements with debt relief and debt collection businesses. First, the FTC announced yesterday a settlement with the owners of a debt relief operation that targeted consumers with outstanding payday loans.The settlement bans the owners from the debt relief business. In February 2015, the FTC filed a complaint […]
CNN Money reports: On Thursday, federal regulators said Wells Fargo employees secretly created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts — without their customers knowing it — since 2011. … Wells Fargo confirmed to CNNMoney that it had fired 5,300 employees over the last few years related to the shady behavior. Employees went so […]
As the unemployment rate has dropped considerably to below 5% from double that during the Great Recession, another, seemingly paradoxical, trend has continued: a drop in adult male workforce participation, which was nearly 100% in the 1960s and is below 90% today. Read this NPR story on the topic or listen to it by clicking on the […]
by Paul Alan Levy This blog has carried a number of articles recently about the bizarre story of “Patel v. Chan” a case in which a pro se lawsuit, seeking relief for defamation based on comments posted on several interactive consumer review sites, was filed in Baltimore without the signatures of any real people. The […]
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled yesterday that drivers for the alt-cab company Uber have to arbitrate claims against the company. The decision means that those drivers are out of court on most of their claims, but also that they cannot proceed on a classwide basis. The case is Mohamed v. Uber […]
The fairness and effectiveness of class litigation has been questioned by courts in recent years. In Inside the Agency Class Action law profs Michael Sant'Ambrogio and Adam Zimmerman argue that aggregation techniques criticized by courts have been used fairly and effectively in agency class actions (such as EEOC class actions). Here is the abstract: Federal agencies in […]
by Paul Alan Levy I blogged here last month about a peculiar pro se lawsuit and consent order which, in retrospect, has all the hallmarks of a sloppy effort by some blackhat SEO outfit trying to help a dentai client, Mitul Patel, rid the Internet of pesky consumer criticisms. As the Streisand Effect engulfed his […]