Live data from Hacker News

U.S. Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits

nytimes.com

81–90 of 249 posts

Re: U.S. Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits

#81
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are just anti people. Correction: anti-poor people.

> 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...

Re: U.S. Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits

#82

this was not about protecting consumers but instead about protecting the interest of trial lawyers who saw their money slush fund about to dry up. this is a group that notoriously donates to one party over another and exerts incredible control over that party. this rule would have done far more than just smack financial institutions as it was only a first move by the bureau which operates too far outside of what shou…

Considering that congress has shown that they care more about campaigning and raising money than passing legislation that protects average citizens, I love having an independent CFPB watching (or at least trying to watch) out for me.

Re: U.S. Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits

#83

What are some arguments for money in politics; lobbying?

There's no way to have meaningful freedoms of speech, assembly, and petition while the government decides what counts as "fair" speech, assembly, and petition. Lobbying is literally talking to people in power. It involves money because advertising and marketing aren't free. A special interest group is literally a group of people who want to talk about a particular set of issues. So to return a question, what are some…

I read about an interesting proposal, it goes like this: American law has a distinction for items you can own but not buy or sell, for example a kidney. You can have a kidney, you just can't sell it and if you're lacking one, you just can't buy it. Similarly, lobbying should be classified like kidneys. You or I or anyone else has the ability to talk to our congressperson or assemble outside their office or petition them, we just can't sell that ability to anyone else. Nor can some CEO buy a 'lobbyist' or anyone else to go speak for them. The first amendment stays preserved that way.

Re: U.S. Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your claim sounds good the way you put it, but less so when you consider that retributive justice seems ineffectual at deterring violent crime... unless you're also going to claim that shitty companies are generally smarter than felons.

The analogy does not work. People commit violent crimes for very different reasons than shitty companies commit economic crimes. And at the end of the day, there is some amount of basic deterrence for people who are not in some kind of adverse mental state. How many more crimes of passion would there be if murder, or assault, were not so harshly penalized? The “deterrence does not work“ line as a matter of degrees, n…

Actually, no. A massive amount of crime is either primarily or secondarily driven by economics.

That is, the crime is conducted for direct financial gain (various black markets, theft, burglary, fraud), to defend a criminal enterprise (turf wars), to gain resources to feed some criminal activity (drugs and gambling addictions, especially), or as a consequence of economic marginalisation (people pushed into desperate situations, or engaging in activities on account of those).

(There's also a tremendous amount of white-collar and corporate crime which is never prosecuted, a whole 'nother story. The dumb criminals are the ones who get caught.)

Even various forms of tribalistic / hate crimes are often related (with varying levels of justification, having a floor of zero) to economic perceptions. As are crimes of passion or pride or reputation.

There's not a whole lot of crime that isn't at least arguably connected to some economic motive or dynamic.

Re: U.S. Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits

#85
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the banks left all their customers money protected by a wind screen door that was accessible in the alley, I think suing could be justified.

Your example falls under the purview of negligence in tort law. Nevertheless an arbitration agreement may supersede a potential lawsuit. The widespread use of forced arbitration seems ripe for examination by the SCOTUS. I'm no lawyer, but it seems like a fairly blatant violation of the 7th amendment.

In your view is it ever permissible(enforceable) to forfeit the right to sue as part of a contract? Or are there just certain kinds of contracts or circumstances for which the right to sue is inalienable?

Re: U.S. Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits

#86
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we're supposed to be a democratic country where everyone's vote is "equal". The money is speech thing completely bypasses and greatly skews that rule. It's like a parallel voting system where a wealthy person's "vote" is quantified in the amount of dollars he or she spends to buy politicians. Also, wealthy people will almost always prefer pro-small taxes politicians, on either party. So they will fund either Repu…

In America, “one person, one vote” only arose in the 1960s. The Constitution was framed with suffrage for only land-owning white men. > That's not how it should work, right? That’s a big question. I don’t think it’s safe to presume it’s answer.

...what? You think a society where some votes count more than others is better? That seems to only be possible if you presume that you/people-who-think-like-you-do would be the ones with more votes.

Re: U.S. Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits

#87
post #4

Pure speculation ahead: Suppose for a moment that the Equifax hack was carried out by a nation-state (like, say, North Korea). This is not an issue of consumer trust and safety. It is an issue of national (US) security and safety. To give another analogy, imagine that in 1920, the Canadian military marched over the border and robbed some banks. Does it make sense for the patrons of that bank to be able to sue the ban…

The way to get better security is to let the free market system work as its intended: Equifax should die a painful death by the masses, if necessary piecemeal one lawsuit at a time until the company coffers have been emptied (and preferably any directors, agents, vested entities, and anyone else within a legally-defensible stone's throw). It may sound harsh, but that's life and life ain't fair. That's the only way to…

>The way to get better security is to let the free market system work as its intended: Equifax should die a painful death by the masses, if necessary piecemeal one lawsuit at a time until the company coffers have been emptied (and preferably any directors, agents, vested entities, and anyone else within a legally-defensible stone's throw). It may sound harsh, but that's life and life ain't fair.

I'm not sure that's a good argument for the free-market. We just have to suffer security breach after security breach until companies clean up? It seems like a total willingness to admit security failures in the first place where regulation could help us here.

Re: U.S. Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits

#88
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we're supposed to be a democratic country where everyone's vote is "equal". The money is speech thing completely bypasses and greatly skews that rule. It's like a parallel voting system where a wealthy person's "vote" is quantified in the amount of dollars he or she spends to buy politicians. Also, wealthy people will almost always prefer pro-small taxes politicians, on either party. So they will fund either Repu…

In America, “one person, one vote” only arose in the 1960s. The Constitution was framed with suffrage for only land-owning white men. > That's not how it should work, right? That’s a big question. I don’t think it’s safe to presume it’s answer.

Manifestly false.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=one+person+one...

Re: U.S. Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits

#89

Is this an opportunity for a new type of law firm that opens up to deal with one type of complaint for one company and offers extremely low fees to file? The idea would be that the paperwork is all the same for the X thousand/million people suing INDIVIDUALLY such that economies of scale take over and the cost of actually filing and pushing the suit through becomes cheap enough for almost anyone. On the side of Giant…

There's no precedent or issue-preclusion with arbitration. So any win you get in one case will have to be re-fought 150,000 times. Hardly a time effective plan.

Re: U.S. Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not. Actually, you're a provider to Equifax, in the form of the data trail they're ingesting. A pretty good WashPo item (by way of Outline because fuck WP's nagwall) spelling this out: https://outline.com/aKwW2y

> fuck WP's nagwall Funny how "Fuck you, pay me" is an acceptable sentiment when you're a freelance software dev, but now when you're a journalistic institution.

Information and markets fundamentally do not work.

A topic I've addressed (and cited people who do not manifest on the Internet as Space Alien Cats, including Joseph Stiglitz) numerous times. And you can read for free!

https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/search?q=information+ma...

Or this yesterday on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15540536

Post reply on HN