A couple years ago I got a robocall. It was a recording urging me to call my Congressman and ask them to cut funding to the USCB. Specifically that, the USCB. They did not use its name, only its acronym. They claimed that it was an agency responsible for harming small business in vague terms. After hanging up, I was curious so looked up what the USCB was. I'd never heard of it previously but after reading their website it was pretty clear to me that some company or companies was trying to drum up people opposing the agency based on sheer ignorance and misinformation. I should mention, I live in West Virginia where they might think that such a tactic would work. I get lots of political robocalls trying to convince me person X or Y is an enemy of coal or whatever (odd considering what a tiny number of people that industry actually employs... but it still holds most in the state in thrall) but that's the first I can think of that was trying to drum up support for something like this.
U.S. Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits
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Re: U.S. Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Correction: anti-poor people. Correction: anti-middle class people. They can't extract any money from the poor, and clearly not from the rich, so guess who's left?
Actually, exploiting the poor is a rather lucrative business for the rich: check cashing, rent-to-own furniture, trailer parks, etc. https://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/opinionator/2013/09/17/maki...
You are both right. They exploit the poor by extracting from the middle. Meanwhile, the rich have moved their assets offshore or into anonymous properties.
Re: U.S. Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits
#93This only highlights the moral emptiness and naked corruption of the modern GOP. Deregulation is fine if you strengthen the ability of citizens to obtain redress through the judicial system. If you weaken that ability, or it is weakened, you increase regulation. But they're both deregulating and restricting judicial redress, which only increases power of those who don't need it. Companies either are liable or not; th…
Take a look at how many YC backed companies have arb clauses in consumer contracts. It's not just a GOP problem.
Re: U.S. Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
I may be in the minority here, but I do not come to HN to get linked to a random person's blog. This is a concerning trend, and it's one thing when someone actually provides some level of insight in a few paragraphs and says they've written several pages on the same subject at [link]. But this is just bottom of the barrel "you said something vaguely similar to a blog post I wrote a few weeks ago, here's the link with…
Yeah, to be fair, half the stuff posted (and often voted up) on HN is blog posts that are thinly veiled content marketing. Plus, it can get exhausting to write the same argument over and over again. Half the reason I write on my blog or on medium is because I find myself repeating a certain argument and I decide to just write it once and for all. But of course, you could always copy and paste with some small edits ra…
If you're actually replying to specific points in the comment to which you're replying, it's unlikely you'll be repeating things very much outside of the typical flame threads around politics or social issues. If you're not referencing specific points it's much more like a "okay you're done speaking now it's my turn" type of conversation. There's admittedly a lot of that anyway, though.
Re: U.S. Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits
#95> Today, it is hard to open up a checking account, rent a car, get cable service or check a loved one into a nursing home without agreeing to mandatory arbitration. This is the part that gives me ulcers, and it's no exaggeration. So many companies insist on us giving up our 7th Amendment rights that we either give in, or don't fly, buy a car, or get a job. We can't even go to the competition because they also have ma…
When I last purchased a car I used accepting the arbitration clause to extract $150 in accessories from the dealer. The sales agent was a bit confused, it’s usually the paperwork guy that deals with the arbitration and at point most people just want it over with..
I was offered over $1000 off to 'just sign the damned contract', but still ended up walking. I was fortunate to find a different dealer that didn't have an arbitration clause, though. I fear I wouldn't find that next time around, and was really hanging my hopes upon legislation like this.
Re: U.S. Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits
#96This only highlights the moral emptiness and naked corruption of the modern GOP. Deregulation is fine if you strengthen the ability of citizens to obtain redress through the judicial system. If you weaken that ability, or it is weakened, you increase regulation. But they're both deregulating and restricting judicial redress, which only increases power of those who don't need it. Companies either are liable or not; th…
Take a look at how many YC backed companies have arb clauses in consumer contracts. It's not just a GOP problem.
You missed the point. It's a GOP problem because of the legislation. Companies will do what they can to strengthen their bottom line, and no one is claiming they are morally bankrupt because of it.
Re: U.S. Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits
#97This only highlights the moral emptiness and naked corruption of the modern GOP. Deregulation is fine if you strengthen the ability of citizens to obtain redress through the judicial system. If you weaken that ability, or it is weakened, you increase regulation. But they're both deregulating and restricting judicial redress, which only increases power of those who don't need it. Companies either are liable or not; th…
Take a look at how many YC backed companies have arb clauses in consumer contracts. It's not just a GOP problem.
I've argued before, though, that I can't fault companies for using them. When someone hands you a get-out-of-jail-free card, you take that thing and hold on to it. It would be a special kind of lunatic who wouldn't.
The logic is this: "Look, you just need to add this handful of lines to your agreement, and you've instantly got protection against money-grubbing, ambulance-chasing lawyers who would come after you because you misplaced a parenthesis. The cost is nearly zero, because nobody reads those contracts anyway, and anybody who makes a stink about it is probably one of those money-grubbing, sue-happy customers you don't want, anyway."
So, yeah. I get it. I hate it, but I get it. To change it is going to require a consumer backlash large enough to impact congress -- not just the CFPB. But consumers aren't making enough noise, because of course, nobody reads those contracts anyway...
Re: U.S. Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits
#98This only highlights the moral emptiness and naked corruption of the modern GOP. Deregulation is fine if you strengthen the ability of citizens to obtain redress through the judicial system. If you weaken that ability, or it is weakened, you increase regulation. But they're both deregulating and restricting judicial redress, which only increases power of those who don't need it. Companies either are liable or not; th…
>This only highlights the moral emptiness and naked corruption of the modern GOP.
So surely you're just as angry about the Democrats deregulating the telecoms in 1996 and allowing companies to own entire vertical chains. (Comcast owns everything from the News, to the pipe you get it from. Ever notice how they never mention "big corporations are killing America" anymore?)
The GOP hates you. The Democrats _pretend_ not to. If that weren't the case, you'd think 8 years under Obama and near-universal public support behind him... things would have actually you know... gotten better.
Too bad they were too busy letting Wall Street destroy the economy without jailtime, giving guns to Mexican cartels, spying on and threatening journalists, drone strikes on US citizens, unprecedented exponential growth in classified documents (cover my ass, anyone?), using the IRS as a political wing, and hunting down and smearing both Snowden and Julian Assange. (Props for the ACA, though. Except that also had no provision to stop healthcare insurance companies rapidly increasing, insane prices that make even ACA plans unaffordable to poor people--I would know. Minimum of $350 a month isn't a viable healthcare plan, as it continues to rise ~10% a year. But fixing pre-existing conditions was About Damn Time(TM), so again, props to them.)
p.s. I voted for Obama, so yeah, I do get to bitch about the disparity between what he said, and what he did.
Re: U.S. Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits
#99This only highlights the moral emptiness and naked corruption of the modern GOP. Deregulation is fine if you strengthen the ability of citizens to obtain redress through the judicial system. If you weaken that ability, or it is weakened, you increase regulation. But they're both deregulating and restricting judicial redress, which only increases power of those who don't need it. Companies either are liable or not; th…
What's crazy is that since Reagan the GOP is also fine with increased gov spending, among a host of other increasingly authoritarian policies.* So no longer can they even claim to be anti government corruption & spending, and pro business & 'freedom.' They just appear to be 'anti people.' But please don't pretend the Dems are a whole lot better on most of these issues... I really hope our generation can work together…
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Re: U.S. Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
So instead of an unaccountable government agency, your only option for redress is an arbiter that the company you're complaining against hired. "Unaccountable" is another word for "provably uninfluenced". Arbitration is provably influenced. (For your other points: "rich" trial lawyers that make, on average, less than software developers? "partisan" isn't the dirty word you think it is, ideas should be judged on merit…
“Unaccountable" is another word for "provably uninfluenced" What? No. “Unaccountable” means “can’t hold them accountable for their actions”.
Yes, that is the literal meaning of the word. However, when a government holds an agency "accountable", it is exerting influence over it. "Accountable" agencies have their effectiveness swing wildly depending on the current governing party's whims. "Unaccountable" agencies, like the Federal Reserve and the United States Supreme Court, carry on doing what they do regardless of whatever nonsense Congress is doing this week.