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FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices

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Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices

#441

Post by LorenPechtel »

AceyMan wrote: post #399
Dylan16807 wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The ATF is simply going on function rather than form. It shoots like a machine gun it is a machine gun no matter what you call it. The part where it breaks down is pointing at a specific piece that enables automatic fire and calling that piece a "machine gun", even if it's just a tiny piece of metal or a specially-tied shoelace.

If it carries the "machine gun" ability with it, it's like ... The Enchanted Seer of Automatic Firing. It turns a 'plain gun' into a machine gun, and there are almost no other ways to do that. So it seems like calling it "a machine gun" is reasonable from linguistic perspective. #wittgenstein

No.

The seers have been banned. I don't think anyone thinks they're not machine gun parts.

What's been going on is the ATF has been going after a variety of methods of circumventing the concept--means of using the recoil to "pull" the trigger without the operator actually pulling it. The result sure acts like a machine gun, albeit an unreliable and inaccurate one. The problem is that it's simply too easy to do, they are fighting a hopeless battle.

My understanding is the same problem applies to silencers--plenty of filters out there that just happen to be of the right size to function as silencers. And there isn't even any reason for the rules against silencers. They aren't like Hollywood, it's still loud but below the threshold of hearing damage.

Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices

#442

Post by rietta »

danaris wrote: post #425
naijaboiler wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah because Congress now have to become experts at everything: from definition of machine guns, to ADA guidelines. Afterall, if Congress didn't specifically pass the law to the detail, it doesn't exist. The sheer stupidity of that argument is mind-blowing. When you have a government agency with dedicated technical resources, but you will rather a bunch of couple hundred of people with different backgrounds make spec…

That's because it's not actually intended to make the regulations better. It's intended to make it impossible for regulatory agencies to do their jobs effectively, without outright legislating them out of existence, because the people backing it believe that without effective regulation they and their allies will be more easily able to enrich themselves at the public's expense.

It's because that is the constraints that the U.S. Constitution places on our form of Federal government. The Congress passes laws (and controls the money), the Executive implements the law, and the Courts interpret the law. My lay understanding is that Chevron shifted too much power from the Congress and the Courts to the administrative agencies in the Executive branch. It seemed like a "good idea" at the time but over time the abuses became apparent and this Supreme Court reigned it back in towards the balance of powers required by the Constitution.

Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices

#443

Post by gosub100 »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #370
jimmaswell wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a move afoot to eliminate all regulations unless they've been specifically passed by Congress. Which is basically incapable of passing anything. (At least some of) the agencies brought this on themselves with their abuse of the goodwill/benefit of the doubt previously afforded to them. Most flagrant has been the ATF, for one example constantly redefining machine guns or pistol braces, turning millions of c…

Machine guns? The ATF is simply going on function rather than form. It shoots like a machine gun it is a machine gun no matter what you call it. That being said, bump stocks are a simple enough concept that banning them is stupid. We should quite our obsession over machine guns--there are few situations where it even matters. The problem with it going through congress is that it will always be political rather than s…

I think the machine gun issue is mostly settled. But there is a lot of controversy lately about what is a short barreled rifle (which requires a special federal permit). I don't know the specifics but the laws have been changed after people purchased their guns, such that if they were caught with them they would be in violation of serious gun laws (essentially as serious as having a machine gun without a permit)

Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices

#444

Post by acdha »

carlosjobim wrote: post #413
acdha wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But hackers and the EU and US bureaucrats think that being a leader in a market has to be punished for being a "monopoly". This is a provocative claim. Do you have any examples?

It is repeated on the level of gospel here on HN that Apple is "a monopoly", and nobody even flinches at the absurdity of that claim.

That’s not in this thread, though, and it usually gets a lot of pushback.

Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices

#445

Post by weberer »

Symbiote wrote: post #94
crazygringo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're talking about sales taxes, they can't until you input your shipping address. Because they depend on where you live. Nobody's trying to fool you by not including sales taxes. There's just no way to show them in advance, unless you want to start typing your address and zip code into every shopping website before you even browse.

In the EU, the site guesses the location based on the IP, writes "Delivery to Denmark [Change?]" and shows prices with Danish VAT. If I'm signed in to the shop from making a previous purchase, they will use the location of the previous purchase.

A lot of sites, for example Amazon, don't update VAT until checkout, even if you set "Ship to [country]" when searching. Then the price suddenly jumps.

Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices

#446

Post by rietta »

jimmaswell wrote: post #271
jfengel wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a move afoot to eliminate all regulations unless they've been specifically passed by Congress. Which is basically incapable of passing anything. Ironically, that inherent dysfunction is the main reason to suspect that won't happen. But politically, every regulation as automatically partisan, even when it has overwhelming support.

> There is a move afoot to eliminate all regulations unless they've been specifically passed by Congress. Which is basically incapable of passing anything. (At least some of) the agencies brought this on themselves with their abuse of the goodwill/benefit of the doubt previously afforded to them. Most flagrant has been the ATF, for one example constantly redefining machine guns or pistol braces, turning millions of c…

"constantly redefining machine guns or pistol braces"

Pistol braces was struck down not on second amendment grounds, but because the ATF failed to comply with the Administrative Procedures Act, specifically failing the logical outgrowth test. They proffered a comment period and then did a switch when publishing the final rule.

Similar shenanigans were afoot with the Trump area bump stock ban, which was ruled against by the Supreme Court itself in Garland v. Cargill. I think that had to do with the agency exceeding its authority beyond what the statute specifically specifies. In laymans terms, the legal details were not ambiguous enough to justify the conclusion that the agency came to stretching the statute through their interpretation.

Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices

#447

Post by LiquidSky »

dotancohen wrote: post #300
breadwinner wrote: post #140

This shouldn't be controversial. FTC isn't banning these fees, it is only requiring merchants to disclose the fees. Why would anyone be against that? Another good rule is click-to-cancel. Just a couple of days ago I logged into my Dish Network account to cancel it (after they hiked prices). There is no way to cancel online. There is no way to cancel via chat. You have to call. As soon as you call you're told the wait…

Why is a law needed to address this? Isn't the market supposed to adjust for companies like this?

Poe's Law truly is a terrible thing.

Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices

#449

Post by asciimov »

ensignavenger wrote: post #418
andreareina wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brick and mortar stores know exactly how much tax they have to pay, yet they don't show an all-inclusive price. It's clearly not a case of online retailers just not showing the tax because it's difficult. If they wanted to they could let you give your post code before checking out, and query the same database to show the post-tax price for everything.

Really, you expect them to go through every item in the store, multiple times per year, and update the price tags?

Around me most stores change their price tags weekly, if not more often. They either have a sheet with new tags or a small printer and scanner and they swap out the tags on the shelf.

Re: FTC bans hidden junk fees in hotel, event ticket prices

#450

Post by michael1999 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #48
munk-a wrote: post #3

An excellent change. It's unfortunate that stewardship of the committee will soon change hands as Khan has been a great advocate for fair contracts between companies and consumers during her tenure.

As a free market fan, Khan seems to have been pretty terrible. But this looks genuinely good! It's basically banning fraud. ---[EDIT], since everyone is asking for reasons here are two libertarian/conservative critiques: • https://reason.com/2024/11/07/good-riddance-lina-khan/ • https://archive.ph/IjNmZ

Those are pretty weak sauce.

The Reason piece is lazy drive-by snark. Calling the anti-trust standards of the 20c "hipster anti-trust" is just a-historical. Blocking consolidation of national chains is hardly some crazy innovation. In fact, it was Bork who was the rebel introducing the stricter "consumer harm" standard. People might argue which is the appropriate standard -- the one invented during the 1890s to break the most powerful trusts in history, or the one invented by a Regan appointee in 1980 to replace it. But the Reason snark does nothing except claim it.

At least the WSJ makes an actual argument about consumer harm. Unfortunately, their argument is: there has been so much consolidation in distribution, we need to consolidate retail to increase their bargaining power to balance. Given the geographical nature of grocery shopping, consolidation is likely to reduce consumer bargaining power further. That the WSJ fails to acknowledge the obvious fact that the greater power of a merged entity would act on both sides of the market is bad-faith.

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