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This short piece in the British Medical Journal, focusing on a fatty-food tax in Denmark, says that the evidence is equivocal. One problem is that consumers may respond to a fatty-food tax by substituting cheaper (but still fatty) foods for more expensive fatty foods. Another problem, believe it or not, is that consumers may buy […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau student loan ombudsman, Rohit Chopra, has issued his first annual report required by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. Michelle Singletary of the Washington Post says that the report may portend a finanical crisis. The report's executive summary appears after the jump.
Here. An excerpt from what the collector supposedly said: "F— you! Pay us your money! You can't afford an attorney. You owe us. I hope your wife divorces your a–. If you would have served our country better you would not be a disabled veteran living off social security while the rest of us honest […]
by Jeff Sovern I've been studying up on student loans because we intend to include some materials on them in the next edition of our casebook. One thing I've learned is that the federal Higher Education Act and its implementing regulations require students obtaining federal student loans to have counseling before they take the loans. See 34 […]
A coalition of business groups and labor unions sued in New York state court on Friday to stop New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's ban on the sale of sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces. Read the complaint and this press account. The complaint claims, among other things, that the regulations are arbitrary and irrational under New […]
That's Steven Pearlstein's characterization of the judiciary's attitude toward federal health and safety regulation in a column published today. Here's an excerpt discussing what Pearlstein views as a recent example: Their latest salvo came just before Labor Day, when a divided three-judge panel threw out rules requiring states to control the air pollution that wafts […]
by Jeff Sovern Mark Bittman has an interesting column in today’s Times, My Dream Food Label, describing how his ideal food label would use traffic lights–green, yellow, or red– to signal qualities such as the healthfulness of the food. Though Bittman doesn’t mention the health department restaurant grading system, which uses letter grades, it’s a […]