Category: Consumer Protection
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The Real Reason Why Amazon Is the Future
I’ve finally figured out what people can do when robots and AI wipe out half the occupations in the economy — they can get jobs fixing all the #$*& that doesn’t work! The last couple of months have been a succession of extraordinarily frustrating experiences in the Bacon family — from trying to find tradesmen…
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Protestants, Progressives and Paternalism
To put Steve Haner’s recent post about the Virginia lottery in broader perspective, I have displayed the “freedom from paternalism” ranking of the 50 states published this year by George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. Virginia ranks 39th in freedom from paternalism. The flip side of that finding is that the Old Dominion ranks as the…
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Would an Eviction-Diversion Program Help or Hurt?
Renters-rights defenders and landlord advocates may be reaching common ground on how to reduce the rate of evictions in Richmond: Create an eviction diversion program. Reports Ned Oliver in the inaugural edition of the Virginia Mercury: Planning is still in its early stages, said [Martin Wegbreit, director of litigation at the Central Virginia Legal Aid…
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More Evidence that Virginia’s Healthcare System Is Broken
Surprise bills for medical care that Virginians expected insurance to cover are on the rise, a General Assembly healthcare panel was told yesterday. (The Daily News has the story here.) Typically, the unexpected charges occur when patients are billed from outside their insurance company’s network. A person might go to a doctor who orders a…
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Revisiting Virginia’s Public Accommodation Laws
Virginia is for lovers haters. A sad scene unfolded in Lexington, Va., last Friday evening. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, President Trump’s press secretary, tried to enjoy a meal with her family at the Red Hen restaurant. The owner, a New York transplant named Stephanie Wilkinson, asked the Sanders party to leave the restaurant after starting their appetizers.…
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Use the Tenant’s Money to Cure the Tenant’s Rent Shortfall
by Martin Wegbreit Recently, Virginia drew national attention for reportedly high eviction rates, especially in central Virginia and Hampton Roads. This has inspired many efforts to address the issue. These include a Campaign to Reduce Evictions, an evictions workgroup at the Virginia Housing Commission, and a possible Eviction Diversion Program in Richmond and elsewhere. These…
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Transparency Coming for College Financial Aid
Last week I blogged about the confusion engendered by many colleges and universities when they send students details of their financial aid packages along with their acceptance letters. The terms and conditions spelled out are often opaque and sometimes deceptive. “If Congress doesn’t act,” I suggested, “the Commonwealth of Virginia could require a standardized letter…
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Where Are the Consumer Rights Advocates When You Really Need Them?
Consumer rights advocates work themselves into a wrathful froth over the misdeeds of banks, payday lenders, credit card companies, and mortgage lenders. But what about the truth-in-lending abuses perpetrated by institutions of higher education? We don’t hear so much. With the cost of attendance of a four-year degree routinely exceeding $100,000, selecting a college can…
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The Service-Dog Thing Is Out of Control
Attorney General Mark Herring has taken action against a problem that is fast becoming a social crisis: that is, the runaway enthusiasm for “service dogs.” The AG’s office has filed a lawsuit against Service Dogs by Warren Retrievers, Inc., a Madison County dog breeder that trains Labrador and G0lden retrievers to be “diabetic alert…
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The “Food Desert” Theory Does Not Reflect Reality
A large social-scientific literature has documented that low-income neighborhoods are far more likely than affluent neighborhoods to be “food deserts,” that is to have low access to healthy food. The big question is why. Does the food-desert phenomenon reflect institutional racism, in which corporate grocery-store chains are unwilling to serve neighborhoods dominated by poor minorities?…
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A Better Model for Lending to the Poor
It’s time to introduce into the public lexicon a distinction between “social justice warriors” and “social justice entrepreneurs.” Social justice warriors (or SJWs, as they are known short-hand on some conservative blogs) seek to remedy the conditions of the poor and downtrodden through political action, typically calling upon government to wield its power and money…
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Government’s War on the Poor: Parent Plus Edition
Rebecca McEvoy, a retired school teacher coping with multiple sclerosis, borrowed $84,000 under the federal Parent Plus program to help her oldest son through art and design school. When he graduated, the government expunged the debt under a law that forgives balances for borrowers deemed permanently disabled. Three years later, she and her husband Dave,…
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A Prosecution or Persecution of Pawn Brokers?
The Virginia Attorney General’s office has extracted settlements from two Fredericksburg-area pawnbrokers for allegedly charging illegal interest and fees. Spotsylvania Pawnking LLC and Stafford-based All-Star Pawn & Gold will provide more than $62,000 in refunds to more than 1,000 customers to resolve the allegations. The two pawn shops also paid the Attorney General’s office a total…
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Let Tesla Open in Richmond
By Stuart C. Siegel Tesla’s electric vehicles are often described as disruptive to the motor-vehicle industry, and understandably so. The U.S.-based company’s all-electric vehicles are well designed, transparently priced and environmentally friendly, and the company is setting high standards for other car makers to follow. Tesla’s sales model is disruptive, too. The company has never…
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How One Gas Plant Can Save Billions
There’s more to the natural gas boom than fracking. Technology deployed at Dominion’s Greensville power plant will squeeze more electricity out of a BTU of gas than ever before. by James A. Bacon Last month Dominion Virginia Power commenced construction of the $1.3 billion Greensville County Power Station. When it opens in late 2018, the…