Web sites to avoid

Well now, it seems that some web sites are very sleazy (via here via KD):
In general, the customers of these companies have no idea that they’re customers until they discover mysterious charges on their credit-card bills. When they investigate further, they find that during the checkout process at reputable websites like priceline.com or 1800flowers.com, they [...]

Overdraft ‘protection’

Hmm, maybe I should look at this:
Ralph Tornes, who lives in Florida, is pursuing a lawsuit against Bank of America for charging him nearly $500 in overdraft fees in 2008 after it rearranged his purchases from largest to smallest. In May 2008, for instance, Mr. Tornes had $195 in his account when he made two [...]

No more card check in EFCA

I’m a little slow to get to it, but it seems that the card check part of the Employee Free Choice Act will be dropped. It was always going to be a tough sell, because of the propaganda of businesses saying that unions would intimidate workers without a secret ballot.
The revised bill still has several good [...]

Parts of you belong to us

I like this:
Ms. Girard took a genetic test to see if her genes also put her at increased risk for ovarian cancer, which might require the removal of her ovaries. The test came back positive, so she wanted a second opinion from another test. But there can be no second opinion. A decision by the [...]

Capitalist rationing is fine

Via Steve Benen, there is healthcare rationing in the US:
Medical crews told him he needed a blood test, chest X-rays and probably a CT scan to check for head injuries. And he certainly should have had treatment for major road rash, including raw scrapes on his face, neck and hands.
But the 31-year-old editor for a [...]

Do we really want that much innovation?

The Boston Globe has an article about CEO pay (the paper it’s based on is here). Given what’s happened in the last few years, I find things like this a little annoying:
What this means, as a practical matter, is that much of the recent populist backlash against executive incentives, and the US government’s move to cap [...]

Libertarians whine

Over at Cato, Libertarians are having a discussion about how to bring about a libertarian state somewhere. It was kicked off by Patri Friedman who says that they should give up on the US and democracy because:
Democracy is the current industry standard political system, but unfortunately it is ill-suited for a libertarian state. It has [...]

Henshaw: OSHA is for employers

The situation at OSHA shows how the Bush administration worked:
The agency’s first director under Bush, John L. Henshaw, startled career officials by telling them in an early meeting that employers were OSHA’s real customers, not the nation’s workers. “Everybody was pretty amazed,” one of those present recalled. “Our purpose is to ensure employee safety and health. [...]

Banks: It’s Our Money Now, Go Away

Let me put together two articles:
At Bank of New York Mellon Corp., chief executive Robert P. Kelly’s stipend for financial planning services came to $66,748, on top of his $975,000 salary and $7.5 million bonus. His car and driver cost $178,879. Kelly also received $846,000 in relocation expenses, including help selling his home in Pittsburgh [...]

More About Chinese Regulation

Here is an example of what I was talking about yesterday:
A year ago, Li was in the middle of the toy recall and product safety scare, telling reporters that the blame for dangerous toys from China lay with U.S. designers and importers. His office was also at the center of an urgent effort last year to [...]

China and Milk

I forgot where I first read this analogy, but it seems more and more apt: China now is similar to the US in the late 1890’s and early 1900’s with the UK in the place where the US is now. The US then and China now, have had a series of scandals in terms of [...]

We Need a Law and Order Candidate

I don’t have a subscription to the New York Review of Books, so I can’t look at this article about The Big Squeeze by Steven Greenhouse. This means I will shamelessly steal bits from Hilzoy:
the story of a man named Drew Pooters, who served in the Air Force for 14 years, got out, and eventually ended [...]

The New Fenway Neighborhood

I lived in the Fenway area of Boston for 18 out of 20 years from 1981 through 2001, but eventually moved out because it (along with most of the city) became too expensive. Except for the expense, I thought the west Fenway region especially was a very good urban neighborhood:

it has a compact residential section
the roads inside the [...]

IMF Not Good for Health?

A study has found that IMF loans in Eastern European countries is associated with higher TB rates (or the NY Times has an article here):
The International Monetary Fund could be bad for your health. The organisation loans money to countries with financial problems, and in return requires governments to undertake “structural adjustment” policies aimed at improving [...]

Diveroli and Privatization

Via Majikthise (who has written a fair amount about this), this editorial in the Wall Street Journal looks at how Diveroli, a 22 year old, got a $300 million contract from the Pentagon. He doesn’t have the answer, but does talk about how the climate for similar things came about:

How could a kid barely able to [...]

More About Diveroli

Efraim Diveroli, the 22 year old president of a major supplier of arms to Afghanistan, has been indicted. I agree with David Kurtz that a one sentence summary works here, but I’m going with Senator Waxman’s:
The Oversight Committee has received evidence that the U.S. Embassy in Albania approved an effort to conceal the illegal Chinese origins [...]

I Think I’m Going For a Defense Contract

If the guy in this story (via TPM) can get so many contracts, I should be able to. Really, look at:
Michael Diveroli, Efraim’s father, had incorporated the company in 1999, when Efraim was 13. For several years, a period when the company appeared to have limited activity, Michael Diveroli, who now operates a police supply [...]

How Capitalism Works, Corporate Style

What does the US do if a person borrows recklessly and can’t repay? In most cases, they lose their investment (or go bankrupt). That was the whole point of bankruptcy reform (even though almost all bankruptcies happen when something unforseen happens–most are for longterm illness or disability).
What does the US do if a big business [...]

Comcast Blocks Bittorrent and People

Let’s see Comcast had a policy of slowing down bittorrent without telling their customers that they did, so a hearing was held about this in Cambridge. So what did Comcast do? They hired people to go to the meeting so that not as many people who were going to speak out against them would be [...]

It’s Hard To Be That Bad

Let’s see, the person in charge of a company that is falling apart, was one of the leaders of loose lending practices (and perhaps outright fraud) that has led to the wave of foreclosures that might be causing a recession might be getting $115 million as part of a buyout deal. Yup, that’s the free [...]