Our country had a financial transaction tax for half a century, the report recounts, but it was repealed in 1965 even though it wasn't hindering growth. Reinstating such a tax would slow down the type of quick-trading speculation that caused the 2010 "flash crash" and it would have provided $22 billion in revenue per year […]
Read here the surprising story of a blogger who showed up at the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC), having let the Commission know he was coming, to conduct an interview regarding the IOGCC's position on climate change. The only interview he got was with the police, as the result of a 9-1-1 call.
Read this fascinating investigative report from the L.A. Times, documenting the dissonance between Exxon's public position on global warming and its private studies undertaken to maintain competitiveness in a world they assumed would be warming. The upshot: As [an internal] team was closely studying the impact of climate change on the company’s operations, Exxon and […]
The text is available here. Public Citizen explains how bad it is for access to lifesaving medicines.
Represented by Public Citizen, CSPI filed suit yesterday in federal court in DC to compel action by FDA on CSPI's citizen petition to reduce the alarming amount of salt to which U.S. consumers are exposed. The petition has been pending for 10 years, and FDA's foot-dragging dates back far longer, explains CSPI in its press […]
The FDA had gotten 125 complaints prior to the recall, reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Still, in an era when companies stubbornly resist potentially safe-saving recalls (think Takata air bags), it's good news that this recall was relatively expeditious.
The Wall Street Journal reports: A powerful Democratic senator has launched an inquiry into bank misconduct, asking top financial institutions to turn over information about the settlements they have entered into with federal agencies over the past decade. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, asked banks in a letter […]
Alison Frankel at Reuters has this article today.
by Jeff Sovern Here. The first paragraphs read: Defying the threat of a White House veto, the House on Wednesday afternoon passed bipartisan legislation to help homebuyers avoid delays and disruptions when closing on their new homes by a bipartisan vote of 303-121. The bill, the Homebuyers Assistance Act, provides a four-month grace period for businesses that […]
If you think so, Chrysler has a deal for you: a discount in exchange for agreeing to binding arbitration. Of course, if there's a problem with the car, then you may end up out way more than $200, and the notoriously business-friendly arbitration system is unlikely to help with that. This story on Jalopnik explains. […]