http://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-republ...
> The FCRA Liability Harmonization Act is particularly noxious. Authored by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), the bill would cap actual and statutory damages for class actions involving credit agencies at $500,000, and completely eliminate punitive damages.
Loudermilk said Friday that his bill “is aimed at curbing frivolous class action lawsuits against businesses under the Fair Credit Reporting Act,” which contains many of the rules for credit agencies.
Fortunately Wikipedia points us at Loudermilk's legislative history. We can see such gems as HR3441, which opponents say "creates a new definition of “joint employer” that strips workers of their legal recourse for wage theft or unfair labor practices when multiple employers jointly control labor conditions." http://democrats-edworkforce.house.gov/imo/media/doc/2017-09...
Or we can look at his campaign contributions: https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?two_year_transaction_peri...
"EXPERIAN NORTH AMERICA, INC POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (EXPERIAN PAC)"
A clickthrough (this is a nice website, btw) shows the total Experian payments: https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00379768/
Only $285,000, unless I've missed an "all figures are in thousands" somewhere. That's a pretty cheap way of buying yourself some legislation.
"H.R.3330 - Ensuring Quality in the Unemployment Insurance Program (EQUIP) Act" = " To amend title III of the Social Security Act to permit States to conduct substance abuse risk assessments and targeted drug testing as a condition for the receipt of unemployment benefits, and for other purposes."
"H.R.3312 - Systemic Risk Designation Improvement Act of 2017" = something to do with Dodd-Frank
"H.R.3257 - Promote Accountability and Government Efficiency Ac" = screw over the civil service. "Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any employee in the civil service hired on or after the date that is 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act shall be hired on an at-will basis. Such an employee may be removed or suspended, without notice or right to appeal, from service by the head of the agency at which such employee is employed for good cause, bad cause, or no cause at all."
"No employee or applicant for employment in the civil service may be awarded by any court a remedy (including damages, costs, or attorney fees) under any of the provisions of law listed in paragraph (3) in a dollar amount that, in the aggregate, exceeds $50,000."
Then a bunch of stuff removing national labour relations law that would otherwise pre-empt state law; allowing concealed carry in DC by holders of other state licenses; something to do with marine mammal protection, probably removing it; and a change to labour law to require a majority of employees not just of union members in certain votes, presumably making strike action much harder.
People don't vote (less than 40% in that election). Make voting mandatory, like in Australia (or at least make it a national holiday), and require a certain amount of real political coverage in the media -- politicians would then better reflect the needs of the people.
> Cap political donations
> Reduce allotted time for campaigning to something like 2 months, and maybe have it publicly funded like Australia
> Use open source congressional redistricting algorithms
> Eliminate First Past the Post
> Eliminate straight ticket voting
All pretty nice ideas that mostly everyone that isn't in power can get behind
I do want to say that public funding also comes with its issues. Its the way most parties in Argentina fund themselves and because all of them do, all parties get to put their hand of the State coffers during elections. So much, they made an electoral reform to have another round of elections, just to be able to spend more money on pork.
There is no solution to funding political parties that wont screw someone. Its yet another example of diminishing the scope of government so they just steal less of it.
As well as a tradition of placing limits on free speech when appropriate.
Which is a larger threat to our country? Democratically elected officials not supporting the views of those that elected them? Or capping the amount of influence a single group can financially have?
Want to get more people voting there are a few things that need to change
1. End First past the post... Anything is better, IRV, Alternative Vote, something else.
2. End 2 Party Gerrymandering, Parties should not have any control over distracting at all Should follow some other function like Zip Code, or Taxing Jurisdiction, or some other government function, not just for voting
3. Implement the Wyoming Rule for for congress
4. Pipe Dream... Put the federal government back into constitutional limits and reverse Wikard v Filburn or pass a law that renders it void
1-3 would do alot, #4 would do the most good
Election reform, (not election finance ) is needed but too many people focus on the money, the money is just a symptom of the problem, not the actual problem. Solve the underlying systemic issue with the voting process and the money becomes pointless and will dry up on its own
If you can't get people to voluntarily participate in democracy then you have a failed implementation of it.
Furthermore, the ability to not vote is a powerful and necessary option, as it's hard for those in power to imply that they have a mandate if <10% of the population actually participated in it.
I don't know what mandatory voting accomplishes except giving those in power the ability to say, "Tut tut! No complaining! You got your vote, after all."
What it does completely deal with is the voter registration question.
"Require" and "free press" don't go together unfortunately.
https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/pacs?cid=N00...
Well, the third parties haven't proven to be all that trustworthy, so suing your bank & credit-card firm(s) for releasing your information might be an interesting approach to take. If the CRAs have the source of their data cut to a trickle, they might start taking this seriously.
And not to defend Equifax, because how can you, but a lot of people make their living there and in general corporations deserve reasonable protection under the law just like individuals do. After all most of them are net positives for society: they provide employment, benefits, and many support their local communities in a variety of other ways.
Meaning that if they lose their court case, they can still continue to behave badly, and not face any additional fines once they hit that measly total.
Oh, and just in case that $500,000 might hit some small "mom-and-pop" credit reporting agency, the total damage that can be awarded (again IN TOTAL TO THE ENTIRE CLASS), is the lesser of $500,000 or 1% of the net worth of the person/corporation the suit is being brought against.
Meaning we are basically saying "you can't actually bring a suit against them that could cause them enough damage to actually change their shitty behavior"
Yes, but I would guess, more frivolous lawsuits are filed by corporations looking to silence critics or competition more so than ambulance chasers. They certainly have deeper pockets.
Hah. I'm not sure I would go that far.
I mean I hear you - corporations are important, as they're a great way for a group of people to accomplish something together - but if the most important thing you do for society is employment, you sound like a pretty shit corporation.
On the other hand, The New Deal did a lot of that. Hmmm.
The New Deal(s) did not really do the above. Although it really provided value in the form of infrastructure as well as employment to citizens it had to take money from people as well as borrow large amounts to do it.
Hating on corporations and trading them for the government as a pseudo-corporation is just as bad. Sounds like a comment dripping with naivety from a college history class as if it's a final 'gotchya' against someone who is looking at the situation from all avenues.
There are definitely corporations that provide employment, tax money, and/or charity work without generating monetary value (how long until Facebook actually sold anything?). But you're larger point is correct; those companies either don't last, or don't stay in that state.
The entire point of the New Deal was to provide employment first and foremost (then, why not do something possibly useful with those employees? Hence the infrastructure.)
> take money from people as well as borrow large amounts to do it.
How is this different from any other corporation? Every company I interact with - including the ones I don't pay - takes value from me; and most (if not all) have taken loans and/or investment. Usually it is money, and I get back something; but it's not like I gave Equifax my personal info [from which the took monetary value].
While yes, taxes ARE categorically different than prices (and bonds are different than stocks), you can still definitely adopt the perspective that they're how you pay for all the civilization supplied by the society you're a part of. And if you don't want to pay for those things, there's still ways to stop; and you don't even have to give up all the things you're getting for the price you're no longer paying.
I'm not hating on corporations. I'm saying that I would expect a corporation whose primary purpose is employment of people to do a poor overall job of adding value to society; at least compared to corporations with goals of delivering products or services.
It's not a question of "does this not produce value", it's a question of which kind of value is most produced.
...And I'm probably wrong anyway, because that's basically what temp agencies do.
Overall, your reply sounds like a comment arguing with an imaginary person you disagree with as if your imagined reality resembles the real thing. Try starting with a question next time, it'll help you figure out if what you think is going is actually what's going on.
And why exactly is it that the size of the lawsuit is a strong indicator of frivolity? I would expect the oppsosite, as a frivolous lawsuit business I believe my interests would lie in doing 100 lawsuits at 10,000 a year rather than one at a 1,000,000.
That's not a net positive to society in my eyes.
Why should someone whom is asking for money with no way to pay it back get the same preference as someone asking to borrow money who has a history of solid payments and has enough capital they could liquify to pay off at least 50% of the amount tomorrow?
I don't think that utility companies or landlords under report although I understand that it would be nice if they reported more for beginning creditors. The distinction for why they aren't included is that they aren't lending you money. You are only paying for their services as you use them. Once in default, they are effectively loaning to you at that point though with a balance to be paid. Do you think the IT technician whom invoiced you for $2500 in work should also report as well? [shrugs] Guess I don't want all balanced from whom provided me a service to be in a credit report for 7 years but I understand that is just me.
Has this ever even happened?
Not all 'republicans' and not all 'democrats' are the same.
Including terrorist supporter Pete King. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03...
Incidentally, it was introduced before the Equifax disaster ...
Because it has 13 Co-sponsors, all republicans and no democrats. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2359...
Further, this was filed long before the breech, yet the piece tries to say that these representatives were doing it "despite" the breech was made public. Some of those listed may still be backing this, and it was (likely, I haven't read it myself) terrible legislation to begin with, but based on the evidence available, it is stretching to make the claims that the opinion piece does about them doing it "even as" the fallout from the breech is settling.
While I am glad they are covering the proposed legislation and bringing it to the publics attention, the piece is worded in a very weasely way.
Yes, they should, but that's not what they are doing. They are doing the opposite. [1] It doesn't matter what the majority want Congress to do when they don't listen or care and instead do what their special interests tell them. The 'bigger problem' the article mentions is not that the laws are tilted towards the corporations. It's that they will continue to be tilted towards them due to corruption.
[1] http://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-republ...