Archive for the ‘Consumer Protection’ Category

June6

Google should disclose its political spending and leave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

By: Jake Parent

You can Google anything right?

Well, try going to the search engine and entering “Google’s political spending.”

You’ll get something like this:

A screen grab of a Google search for the phrase "Google's political spending"

Ironically, the top result is Google’s “transparency policy.”

As you can see, while we get a few results for the company’s direct lobbying activities (which it is required by law to disclose), there’s little else to indicate what Google is doing with its other political dollars.

To make things clearer, I should explain that companies can spend money on politics in a few ways.

First, they can spend directly on lobbying themselves. They can also make direct political expenditures to back candidates or contribute to federally registered political committees. And in some states, they can contribute directly to candidates. This spending generally has to be disclosed.

But they can also spend money that doesn’t have to be disclosed. This spending can vary, but is most commonly done when a company makes contributions to “social welfare” organizations like Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS or to “trade associations” like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Neither the organizations nor the companies have to disclose these types of contributions, and the organizations can spend money on a wide range of political activities.

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Posted in: Consumer Protection, Open Government, Social Justice9 comments

May31

What George Takei said:

By: Rick Claypool

A quote from George Takei that reads, "Dear Internet: It is not "censorship" to petition companies, the government or organizations to change their policies. Censorship is when the government, or a quasi-governmental entity, itself acts to quash or silence debate. Asking people to add their voices to a cause, or to vote with their dollars, is part of a healthy and robust social discourse and, I argue, is essential to the free exchange of ideas. Carry on.”

I saw this on Facebook earlier today, and it reminded me of all the terrific pressure Public Citizen has organized against reckless corporations for polluting our environment, wrecking our economy, attacking consumer rights and distorting our democracy. And I couldn’t agree more.

Rick Claypool is online director for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. Follow him on Twitter at @RickClaypool.

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Posted in: Activism, Campaign Finance, Climate Change, Congress Watch Column, Consumer Protection, Financial Reform, Social Justice0 comments

May17

New U.S. Chamber attacks on corporate political spending disclosure are a good sign

By: Jake Parent

How can you tell that momentum is building for change?

Well, one good sign is that the opposition starts getting nervous about your progress.

That’s why we took it as a positive sign that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently stepped up attacks on shareholders who attempt to make companies disclose political spending.

Earlier this month, I attended an almost comical presentation at the U.S. Chamber headquarters where speakers spent most of a four hour event attacking political spending disclosure resolutions as being bad for business.

I say ‘almost’ comical because, while much of the information is laughably wrong, the subject matter is far too important to joke about.

There are a number of things wrong with what I heard at this event, but I’d like to focus on two disturbing claims in particular.

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Posted in: Activism, Campaign Finance, Consumer Protection, Regulation, Social Justice0 comments

April22

SEC commissioner, others call for SEC to protect investors from forced arbitration

By: Guest blogger

the logo for the Securities and Exchange Commissionby Jon Croteau

Last Tuesday, Luis Aguilar, a commissioner for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), showed that he was serious about investor protection. At an annual conference for securities regulators, Aguilar expressed his personal support for an SEC rule that would permit investors to decide how to resolve disputes with broker-dealers and investment advisors. If Aguilar’s fellow commissioners agree and the SEC adopts such a policy, investors will have the option of pursuing their legal claims in court.

Aguilar said, “[i]nvestors … should have the unencumbered right to seek redress in all available forums.” He explained,

Arbitration may be a viable option after a dispute arises and both parties knowingly agree to go into arbitration. However, my main concern with pre-dispute mandatory arbitration is the denial of investor choice; investors should not have their option of choosing between arbitration and the traditional judicial process taken away from them at the very beginning of their relationship with their brokers and advisers.

Currently, the overwhelming majority of broker-dealers and investment advisors include language in their contracts that force investors to resolve disputes against them in private arbitration. Brokerage firm Charles Schwab has raised the stakes by not only forcing individual customers to resolve disputes in arbitration, but by recently adding a provision in its investor contracts that deny customers the ability to band together in class actions against it.

The ban on class actions will harm small investors the most because many lack the resources to pursue valid claims on their own in costly arbitration. They will be unable to recover for losses resulting from all-too-frequent violations, such as misrepresentations about the nature or value of investments.

Since last Monday, Commissioner Aguilar’s statement endorsing investors’ right to seek redress in court has been making headlines in the investment community. The Investment News also agreed with Aguilar that investors should be able to choose a forum to resolve their disputes with broker-dealers and investment advisors. While Aguilar’s statement is a positive development, our work is far from complete.

In 2010, Congress expressly authorized the SEC to restrict forced arbitration between investors and broker-dealers and investment advisors as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. To protect investors, the SEC must adopt a rule to eliminate forced arbitration from these contracts.

Jon Croteau is an intern with Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division

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Posted in: Consumer Protection, Financial Reform, Social Justice0 comments

April12

Barofsky, Born and Miller’s bombshells (video and notable quotes on “too big to fail”)

By: Rick Claypool

“Too big to fail” banks not only leave the country at risk of another crippling financial crisis, but also are holding the country’s political processes hostage because of the outsized power they wield.

That was the consensus among speakers at the release of Reality Check, a book by Public Citizen’s Taylor Lincoln that seeks to remind the public that deregulation caused the economic downturn and to counter the myths that have been propagated about regulations in recent years.

Watch the video (also embedded above) featuring highlights of the discussion.

Speakers included Neil Barofsky, the former inspector general of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairperson Brooksley Born, and former Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.).

These three former public officials are among the best equipped to evaluate risks to the economy from insufficient regulation. Barofsky went toe-to-toe with the other financial regulators in pursuit of standards to prevent fraud and steps to ensure that loan restructuring programs perform their stated purpose of helping people avoid foreclosure rather than softening the blow to the banks’ balance sheets. Born warned about the risks of financial derivatives in the 1990s, a decade before they nearly brought down the financial system. Miller sought to police subprime lending abuses long before they were widely recognized and was an outspoken champion of the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill.

The panelists’ discussion about the influence of too-big-to-fail banks and the force that industry wields through its ability to offer future employment to agency and congressional staffers was packed with eye-opening – and often appalling – observations.

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Posted in: Congress, Congress Watch Column, Consumer Protection, Financial Reform, Regulation0 comments

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