This is a detailed article by Expose, starting off with some of the excuses reporters hear: In 2005, the Associated Press collected and published a list of novel excuses government officials used to deny FOIA requests, many of which failed the "my dog ate my homework" test. The list included,…
As you can read at FreePress.net, the Senate appropriations subcommittee has provided $420 million in advance funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for FY 2010. Mirroring its House counterpart, this represents the first increase to this critical line-item in four years. The subcommittee also provided level funding of $29.7…
If you Google “Paris Hilton Jail” you’ll get 15 million hits. If you Google “Downing Street Memo” you'll get only 800,000 hits. A terrifying real-world topic, “Greenland ice sheet,” will only return 900,000 hits. I suppose it’s because there are no videos of memos or glaciers having sex. What brought…
Are they looking for someone with a conscience who will lead a team that will speak with passion and conscience? Are they looking for someone who bases his or her writing on deep principles, letting the chips fall where they may? Keep in mind that this is the modern version of the Post-Dispatch…
For the past couple years, I have had the privilege of working as a consumer attorney. I’ve occasionally written about some of the topics I’ve encountered as a consumer lawyer. In this post, I’ll address another issue that I commonly encounter in my practice: illegible forms full of fine print that deprive consumers of fundamental rights.
What provoked this topic is a lawsuit I am currently handling. My client sued a payday lender based on a payday loan that she alleges the defendant repeatedly processed and renewed in violation of the payday lending laws of Missouri. This is a big deal to my client and to all of the numerous potential class members of this class action. Why is it important? For starters, this particular payday lender (and many others) charged 469% interest. This is not a typo. I have often asked friends and acquaintances whether they’ve heard of payday loans. They usually say they have heard of those sorts of businesses. I then ask them how much interest they think payday lenders charge. Most people say something like this:
“Oh, I hear that it is an exorbitant rate of interest, perhaps 25%.”
They are shocked to hear that it is legal to charge consumers 400 or 500% interest on a small consumer loans. They are shocked to hear that some of these companies make it part of their business plan to repeatedly violate Missouri lending laws. They are also shocked at one other thing, the topic of this post. …
