Another good rule is click-to-cancel. Just a couple of days ago I logged into my Dish Network account to cancel it (after they hiked prices). There is no way to cancel online. There is no way to cancel via chat. You have to call. As soon as you call you're told the wait time is over 45 minutes. There is no call back option. Why should a consumer have to be on the phone for 45 minutes to cancel? (Typically they will drop the call after 45 minutes and you have to call again.) If you call Dish to sign up service the wait time is 0 minutes: they answer immediately. If you then tell that you're actually calling to cancel, they forward you to the cancellation number with the wait. This is an abusive business practice, and banning it should not be controversial.
Years ago when signed up with them I opted to pay the extra service for local tv channels, which required an andditional antenna to install.
For some reason the installer couldn’t fit it securely on our house, and said to call Dish to remove the service since we cannot receive it.
Dish refused to remove the local service! They said since we signed a contract we were stuck paying for it even though they couldn’t fit the antenna.
I pointed out in a hundred different ways that the contract also required them to provide a service which they are not providing so we shouldn’t have to pay.
All of my attempts to reason with them were ignored, and their call staff refused to escalate to their manager.
Long story short we had to pay for twelve months for something they couldn’t provide to us.
Literally the minute the contract was up we cancelled (it was easier to cancel back then).
I would never ever go near this company again.
In some jurisdictions you have to show up to small claims yourself though which prevents some third party from just handling it. Makes sense since the idea behind small claims is to keep the legal costs low enough that you actually have a chance of recovering smaller sums without paying more then what you will get.
You could win that case with very little evidence. Merely the written contract, a photo of the loose antenna (or the antenna itself, if the installer left it behind instead of installing it), the statement from the installer stating that he couldn’t complete the job, and the bills for the service that you couldn’t use but that you have had to pay up to that point. That’s all paperwork that you should have held on to anyway, at least for a few years.
There is the case of ignorance, where a person might not know about small claims court, let alone how it works and what it does. Then there is the case of an increasing number of forced arbitration clauses. Then there is the fact that companies wishing to not get swept up in a wave of small claims will reach out and try to fix the problem if they do actually have a case they think they might lose, further preventing more people from talking about it. And small claims court may ‘only take minutes to resolve,’ but that small length of time would only happen once you are actually seen in court. Before that, you’d need to - file with a clerk (meaning, spend time learning what you need to file, where you need to file it, etc.), - serve the defendant (which costs money and time), - arrive at the court in the morning for roll call, - wait a few hours until you and the defendant are actually called (if they showed up…, which if not expect to come back after serving them again).
This is not a ‘trivial’ task, and all the while the company that scammed you already had your money. As a large company, you can arbitrage the profit of this shady behavior against the risk of someone actually going through all of the steps.
Besides, it’s easier than you pretend. The form you have to fill out is literally two pages long. The costs and filing fees are minimal, and they’ll even waive them if you ask. You can email your local sheriff and have them take care of service, or do it by mail. Yes, you will likely spend more time waiting in the lobby (more likely the hallway in the basement, but whatever) on the day of your hearing than you will spend in front of the judge, but what more could you possibly want? The process has been made literally as simple as is currently feasible.
If a company sends you a $2 check ten years after they recognize a profit from defrauding you or lying to you or harming you, that's not a punishment, and is certainly not an incentive to not do those things.
None of these shit companies will ever take you up on the offer though, because expecting to get paid for a service you don't provide (and can't provide in this case) won't fly in court.
Have you actually tried this? Because having not tried it myself, I'd bet a paycheck that you get sent to collections, get a ding on your credit report, and you're still on the hook for taking it to court if you want it resolve to your favor. (Assuming U. S.) And as a cherry on top of that shit sundae, it's probably in the contract that you have to go through arbitration anyway.
When collections calls, you explain them the situation (service not provided or whatever, and evidence of trying to resolve it with them in good faith) and they go away.
Have yet to see a court summons or anything, although I'd love to see them try their lies in court.
I did not care about the credit report impact - it's probably the only valid reason not to do this if this is something you care about.
Thanks for the follow-up. I suspect UK does make a difference, but IANAL in either country. I do, however, have a bit of personal experience in the U. S. :-)
If you are relying on them for something other than the thing you don’t want to pay for, this becomes a problem.
For example, I disputed a charge with my CC from the Apple App Store when I was charged for an app that I shouldn’t have been years ago. They immediately cut off my access to the Store. Other apps couldn’t update, OS couldn’t update, couldn’t get new apps, etc.
But the fact that I have a billing dispute with a company and they are able to hold everything else that bit of technology touches hostage is just wrong. Imagine if you had a billing dispute with the city water company and they cut your city power because of it.
With any such service, I budget 1 hour. If I can't get cancellation within that time-frame I have a standard form letter that gets sent out.
Once the letter is sent, after the current billing cycle ends any additional charges from said service are disputed (either on the card or on bank account) as fraud.
On three occasions, I've been asked to provide proof of fraud.
I've emailed a scan of the cancellation letter. The fraud has never been further disputed even from a gym in Chicago that (via their contract's language) demanded an in-person cancellation.
Life is too short and time is far too precious.
Companies like to pretend that they can set the rules for all interactions with them when that's just not the case.
Genuinely, sometimes calls simply get transferred to the "wrong people", the CSR rep is brand new, the system itself gets backed-up (Poisson distributions can be a bitch), the company is going through a transition to a completely new CSR interface, or the general counsel just shoved an entirely new set of operating agreements up everyone's ass. Companies are made of people.
I consider 1 hour my botd (benefit of the doubt) tax for cancellation of consumer services.
Also note, that's not one continuous hour of time*attention.
The lawyer field is captured and they know they'd get taken to court by other lawyers if they "recommended" such a thing, because their industry has made them liable for things they "recommend".
We still get the same consumer-hostile practices from companies, but usually they give up if you send them one of those letters.
One thing about the U.S. is this sort of liability also has a huge gamut depending almost entirely on which actual U.S. state the transaction is done.
However, there's also likewise a huge gamut between what's technically actionable versus what's practicable with jurisprudence. Europe has an entirely different notion of "legal fees".
Ironically, that inherent dysfunction is the main reason to suspect that won't happen. But politically, every regulation as automatically partisan, even when it has overwhelming support.
(At least some of) the agencies brought this on themselves with their abuse of the goodwill/benefit of the doubt previously afforded to them. Most flagrant has been the ATF, for one example constantly redefining machine guns or pistol braces, turning millions of citizens into felons with no oversight beyond drawn out and expensive court cases against them.
I never liked the smell of this power being afforded to agencies in the abstract, even for the "good guys" at the CDC or Department of the Interior. It's too rife for abuse. Federal regulations (whether you call it a law or a rule, the party van is coming if you break them) are supposed to be hard to pass. We once needed an amendment to ban alcohol before we forgot the definitions of interstate and commerce, but if my understanding is correct, under Chevron deference the DEA could have decided to schedule it without even asking congress.
> given that judges likely have even less knowledge of the subject than the ATF, probably worse and more inconsistent.
In the unicorn rainbow world where the regulatory agencies are omniscient saints only worrying about the common good, that may be an argument. In the real world, where the regulators are extremely politicized, extremely concerned with gaining more power and extremely happy to pass completely absurd and harmful regulations if it fits their particular agenda, it's not. And by now we all know this is the world we are living in.
Not on it's own, no. The bigger culprit there is the erosion of the nondelegation doctrine. But Chevron aggravated the problem by allowing agencies to stretch their authority beyond what even congress intended with little possibility of legal challenge.
Interpreting the law is and should be the role of the courts, not the role of the agencies that that law is supposed to be governing. It'd be like if we passed a law intended to regulate insurance companies, and the courts decided to give deference to the insurance company's interpretation of that law because "they're the experts on insurance".
You could always argue in court that the agency’s interpretation of the statute was not reasonable. The court could always agree with you and establish case law against that interpretation.
It was a two part test:
1. Is the statute clear? If so, defer to statute. Otherwise, go to (2).
2. Is the agency’s interpretation reasonable? If so, defer to agency. Otherwise, the agency's rule is no longer enforceable.
Now, the court is allowed to come up with its own interpretation even in the presence of a reasonable agency interpretation. That is the only change. If the agency's interpretation was unreasonable, then it was already going to get thrown out.
The courts took the authority to throw out interpretations that they themselves (the court!) think are reasonable. Unreasonable interpretations were NEVER protected by Chevron deference.
> Proving something is "not reasonable" in a legal sense is a pretty high bar to clear
Sure it is, but that is literally not the bar. The courts always had the authority to do their own analysis of reasonableness so long as the challenger raised the question. In fact, they didn't just have the authority to do it, they were obligated to do it.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/706
The low probability of overturn is an argument for Chevron deference. It is empirical proof that courts almost always found agencies' rules to be reasonable interpretations.
"Correctness" is an actually meaningless concept here. Correct according to which rubric? Please answer specifically.
I.e. you’re going to need a better rubric.
"The agency's own personal interpretation" is another nonsense phrase where you're trying to simply presume your opinion alongside a weak argument. The agency is not a person.
>I.e. you’re going to need a better rubric.
I see nothing wrong with the rubric I gave. It's the one the constitution set up, and therefore 100% correct from a legal perspective. Past courts having different opinions from the current one is irrelevant to that.
> The agency's own personal interpretation" is another nonsense phrase
No, it means exactly what is says. The agency has its own interpretation which has and ought to have no more legal weight than a random person's. If it's just the word "personal" you're objecting to, that's obviously a figure of speech that doesn't alter the substance of my argument.
An agency is an agency, not a court. They have exactly zero constitutionally granted authority to interpret law. Why in your view should their opinion on the law have any more weight than yours or mine, or than any other person's personal interpretation? Or more importantly, more weight than the courts; the institution created for the very purpose of interpreting the law? Because it seems very obvious to me that it shouldn't. Especially in the context of a lawsuit to which the agency is one of the parties.
Okay so on June 27, 2024, the "100% correct from a legal perspective" was that courts defer to agencies when they have reasonable interpretations of ambiguous statutes.
On June 28, 2024, the "100% correct from a legal perspective" was that courts should not defer to agencies when they have reasonable interpretations of ambiguous statutes.
Each of these decisions define which structure "the Constitution set up." This fact is itself defined in the Constitution.
Your argument that this is a good decision because it's "Constitutionally correct" is literally just begging the question. It is an entirely circular argument that could just as easily have been applied to defend Chevron. If your argument can be used to defend either side of it, it's a bad argument.
When I say things like "the courts are the mechanism our constitution defines for resolving disputes about the interpretation of law", I am making a principled argument based on my understanding of the Constitution and the Separation of Powers, not based on anything the Supreme Court has or has not said.
The United States Constitution defines three separate branches of government:
1. The Legislative Branch, which makes law
2. The Judicial Branch, which interprets law
3. The Executive Branch, which enforces law
These branches are intentionally separated from each other to prevent the concentration of power, and so that each branch can serve as a check and balance on the powers of the other branches.
Government agencies are part of the Executive Branch, which enforces law. They are not part of the Judicial Branch, which interprets law. Therefore, they should not have a role in interpreting the law, and granting them that power breaks this simple fundamental principle of the Constitution.
This is civics 101 level stuff. It doesn't seem like it should be controversial to me, which is why I've been asserting it as true without feeling the need to try to justify my points beyond those assertions.
But that's beside the point anyway, because it shouldn't have to be the legislature's job to be constantly weighing in on whether an agency is following the law as written. That's literally what the courts are for; to interpret nuances of the law.
The US isn't well functioning its just rich
The US is rich because it's well functioning.
* The country was launched on most of a century of essentially "free" land grabs-- limited pushback from native civilizations. buying cheap from distressed foreign powers (Louisiana), the main wars of conquest being insignificant squabbles with Mexico over trifles.
* Said land was also compelling-- you weren't fighting the environment to extract value the way you would be in Siberia.
* After 1865, no significant nation-scale conflict on the territory itself to blow down existing investments.
* This created an opportunity for bulk immigration-- first with Homestead Act style programmes and then because the American economy was compelling enough to be a pull by itself. A high immigrant population has a unique "opt-in" demographics-- a situation that self-selects for entrepeneurialism.
None of this required wildly competent government. George Washington could have chosen to be a king, a religious caliph, or a protosocialist planning enthusiast, and the deck would have still held almost all the same cards.
Consider: Congress passes a law which sets limits on the authority of an agency. You think the agency itself should get to decide what that law actually means? And the courts, the branch of government specifically granted the role of arbiter by our constitution, should be required to differ to that interpretation if anyone ever objects and brings a lawsuit? It's absurd, and no less so than if the law was concerning a private company rather than a public agency.
What came before this was at least 15 years of tort action, a patchwork of civil rulings across a wide variety of jurisdictions, and generally, confusion and ambiguity. Not the stuff of efficient government.
From my perspective, this rulemaking is pretty close to ideal. I did not dream of getting such a clear, detailed direction from a federal agency. I think my jaw may have literally dropped as I read through it. I think the web accessibility is an interesting example, because it's not a bloated bureaucracy harassing some fishermen, it's an agency trying to prevent the government from violating your civil rights.
So, is the idea that Congress would have accomplished this instead? I just can't imagine that happening.
The sheer stupidity of that argument is mind-blowing. When you have a government agency with dedicated technical resources, but you will rather a bunch of couple hundred of people with different backgrounds make specific rules about everything. That's just madness
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loper_Bright_Enterprises_v._Ra...
If the interpretation in Loper Bright was not "reasonable," the Supreme Court already had the tools it needed to reverse the agency without breaking any precedent. If on the other hand it was reasonable, why should the courts be getting involved?
Removing Chevron simply allows the courts to select their preferred policy outcomes more directly.
In a https://www.scotusblog.com article, Amy Howe quotes the Chief Justice as saying "Chevron deference, Roberts explained in his opinion for the court on Friday, is inconsistent with the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law that sets out the procedures that federal agencies must follow as well as instructions for courts to review actions by those agencies. The APA, Roberts noted, directs courts to “decide legal questions by applying their own judgment” and therefore “makes clear that agency interpretations of statutes — like agency interpretations of the Constitution — are not entitled to deference. Under the APA,” Roberts concluded, “it thus remains the responsibility of the court to decide whether the law means what the agency says."
I ought to go read the decision for myself, which I have to this point not yet done. I am not an attorney, but do have a general interest in these matters.
But back to the earlier poster's notes, ATF has been a prime example. They have a history of capricious reinterpretation at the whims of whichever administration is in power. They issue letters to people and businesses that say one thing is okay and then outlaw in without any law changes a decade later. I have never owned a pistol brace, but they stated it was an acceptable innovation for certain applications, thousands and thousands of people relied on that, they issue a rule making comment period and get feedback and then threw all of that out and came out with a final rule that bore no resemblance to the one in the comment period. Then they stand behind Chevron that the courts had to listen to their interpretation. It is legal "heads, I win" and "tails, you lose!"
The ATF is simply going on function rather than form. It shoots like a machine gun it is a machine gun no matter what you call it.
That being said, bump stocks are a simple enough concept that banning them is stupid. We should quite our obsession over machine guns--there are few situations where it even matters.
The problem with it going through congress is that it will always be political rather than scientific. The agencies don't do a good job, but a lot of that is because of garbage they are saddled with by congress (think of the machine guns--the basic problem is that the legal and practical definitions are out of sync) and a lot of it is because politics manages to get in anyway.
How about a middle ground: agencies can make rules but they must give their reasoning and supporting evidence--and anyone can challenge such in court. You can't go after the ruling but if you can knock out it's supports it goes away. This would cut both ways--exempt something from a more general ruling and the reason for the exemption can be challenged. (And I'd like to see the same thing for laws.)
The part where it breaks down is pointing at a specific piece that enables automatic fire and calling that piece a "machine gun", even if it's just a tiny piece of metal or a specially-tied shoelace.
The case entirely hinged on the definition of machinegun being a gun that fires more than one shot "by a single function of the trigger" with the majority saying that because you need to keep forward pressure to keep firing, bump stocks don't count.
The aspect of bump stocks being just a part and not a gun wasn't important to the case because the statute is clear on this point: any part that's intended to convert a regular gun to a machine gun is itself a machine gun under the relevant law.
It turns a 'plain gun' into a machine gun, and there are almost no other ways to do that. So it seems like calling it "a machine gun" is reasonable from linguistic perspective. #wittgenstein
The seers have been banned. I don't think anyone thinks they're not machine gun parts.
What's been going on is the ATF has been going after a variety of methods of circumventing the concept--means of using the recoil to "pull" the trigger without the operator actually pulling it. The result sure acts like a machine gun, albeit an unreliable and inaccurate one. The problem is that it's simply too easy to do, they are fighting a hopeless battle.
My understanding is the same problem applies to silencers--plenty of filters out there that just happen to be of the right size to function as silencers. And there isn't even any reason for the rules against silencers. They aren't like Hollywood, it's still loud but below the threshold of hearing damage.
I think that's already true, except that you probably need standing - you need to show you're affected by the rule - to sue. There are many rules around rule-making including against arbitrary rules, guaranteed public comment periods, etc.
Everything is ripe for abuse.
———-
Right now, agencies are the defensive structures. Corporations which own media or parties that are effectively corporations - are the threat.
One of the specific defenses that’s employed by private forces is reduction in trust of agencies.
——
All systems are vulnerable. It’s a question of relative vulnerability.
Pistol braces was struck down not on second amendment grounds, but because the ATF failed to comply with the Administrative Procedures Act, specifically failing the logical outgrowth test. They proffered a comment period and then did a switch when publishing the final rule.
Similar shenanigans were afoot with the Trump area bump stock ban, which was ruled against by the Supreme Court itself in Garland v. Cargill. I think that had to do with the agency exceeding its authority beyond what the statute specifically specifies. In laymans terms, the legal details were not ambiguous enough to justify the conclusion that the agency came to stretching the statute through their interpretation.
It's hard to argue with this in principal. The rules as law BS has been a band-aid over dysfunction. It needs to go. It'll hurt in the short term but should be more sustainable in the long term. That people will get more angry at congress for doing nothing is icing on the cake.
I want to be optimistic about this. In practice it seems that the strategy created by McConnel to block any legislation at all has been doing/tricking the voter really well. As he predicted, credit for anything good goes to the current admin while anything bad also gets blamed on the current admin. I can see a likely scenario where "people getting more angry" will only make this strategy to block everything work even better. I hope I am wrong and the "nuance" that congress exists and isn't controlled by the president will finally get into people heads. I also hope that once it gets into their heads, the conclusion won't be that a authoritarian dictator is needed.
"Let's meet in the middle" says the unjust man.
You take a step towards him. He takes a step back.
"Let's meet in the middle" says the unjust man.
There are decades of rules in the federal register. How long do you imagine it will take the legislative branch to patch them?
Go skim some of them, and see if you feel the same way afterward:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/search?conditions%...
It's very easy to argue with this in principle. Congress can't be constantly updating every law as new technology or situations emerge. It's much better for laws to set general goals and leave implementation to agencies staffed with experts.
If you are left-leaning, suppose the “experts” are former oil company lobbyists.
If you are right-leaning, suppose the “experts” are Marxists hired by President AOC.
That is why the “trust the unelected experts” idea fundamentally bothers people.
Who is behind this move? What individuals, and what politicians? By what legal means is this happening? I've literally never heard of anything like this before - without further details, this is just political flame-baiting.
The supreme court. The removal of Chevron Deference this year means that the courts have given themselves huge amounts of power over any administrative decision that isn't specifically regulated by congress (rather than the prior stance which was to presume that agency decisions were reasonable interpretations of the legislation unless there was clear evidence to the contrary).
They always have?
Agencies no longer get special privileges in interpreting the scope of what Congress delegated to them.
Within the scope of what Congress delegated to them, they still have an much power and discretion as ever.
The judge said, "Even as the agency has the power, I don't feel sufficiently convinced by their argument and will block it anyway."
That doesn't sound like they have as much power in their delegated responsibilities if an arbitrary judge says "... and you also have to convince me personally, even though you're entitled to do it."
What you are proposing is that Congress be allowed to abolish its own power, completely destroying the constitution.
Who cares if they had that ability? They wouldn't use it.
And even if they did, it wouldn't violate separation of powers.
And even if they did, they could make a new law that takes it back.
Of all the worries about delegation, this one seems like the least meaningful.
Three major developments from the courts in this direction have been:
- The overturning of Chevron gave courts the power to interpret portions of laws written by subject matter experts, instead of those experts themselves.
- The big questions doctrine has allowed the courts to decide when the legislature has deligated too much power.
- Cornerpost has removed the statue of limitations for challenge policies and rules out in place by agencies.
These together clearly paint a picture. Any policy can be challenged (in any venue, allowing the plaintiff to pick their venue). This allows policies in place for decades to be challenged and brought to the supreme court. The most recent court has adopted the major questions doctrine, allowing them to strike down any policy they feel pertain to "issues of major political or economic significance." (no they didn't define it more than that). Or, if they can't make that argument, they can interpret the law to strike down the policy due to the overturning of Chevron.
We've seen an unprecedented shift of power to the supreme court in the last few years. They're using the disfunction in the legislature as an opening to gain power. Which is scary considering it's a group of 9 unelected people with lifetime appointments.
https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-strikes-dow...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_questions_doctrine
https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/corner-post-inc-...
"concluding they did it for no reason"
What?
https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-strikes-dow...
Two (of many, many) books which detail two separate efforts to dismantle our administrative state are:
Lobbying America https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691168016 the history of how Business Roundtable, Chamber of Commerce, et al reacted to The New Deal by transitioning from trade groups to political players.
Democracy in Chains https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Chains-History-Radical-Stea... shares (Nobel winning economist) James McGill Buchanan's role in bootstrapping the Southern flavored conservative movement (libertarian "free enterprise" segregationists reacting to Civil Rights Era and The Great Society).
Article I, section 1 of the Constitution: ‘All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.’
It doesn’t say, ‘Congress may delegate its legislative Powers to the Executive.’ Arguably, the ‘shall’ language forbids that! Article I, section 8 does give the Congress the authority to pass laws necessary and proper to execute its regulation of interstate commerce (among other things), but … it’s not necessary to delegate legislative power in order to execute the law.
Those people need to be paid, and their services accounted for.
Those outreach and comms programs also need to be handled.
Congress can’t add 300 days into 24 hours. So this is a reading of law kinda like an absolutist readings of a text.
By necessity, legislators delegate rule making to agencies.
Who do you want determining the precise definition of a kilogram? Congress or NIST?
By necessity, some rules have the force of law. Like how many state's Secretaries of State are entrusted with clearly scoped essential administrivia, like how to run elections.
Do you really want legislators doing the technical and operational evaluation of tabulators?
Of course, precisely where the lines are between various jurisdictions must be adjudicated. That's why we have the courts. IIRC, most cases heard by SCOTUS pertain to administrative law.
How else could our government function?
I agree that there are distinct activities. In our system, there are three distinct activities: lawmaking, law execution and law application; they correspond to the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government.
It’s clear to me that regulations with the force of law must be passed by the Congress, while regulations applied within the executive without the force of law may be promulgated by the executive.
> By necessity, legislators delegate rule making to agencies.
I don’t see that it is in any way necessary, and I do see that it is extremely dangerous to a republican system of government. Every member of the executive ultimately answers to a single man: the President. If the Congress enables the President to dictate the content of a law, then that one man is a dictator.
The Founders did not want a king, and the Constitution does not allow one. Again, to quote the document: ‘All [emphasis added] legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress …’ Not some legislative powers, but all.
> Who do you want determining the precise definition of a kilogram? Congress or NIST?
It’s not about what you or I want; it’s about what the supreme law of the land allows.
As it happens, it wouldn’t bother me if Congress set the definition of the kilogram. Why would it bother you?
> Do you really want legislators doing the technical and operational evaluation of tabulators?
Again, it’s not about what I want, but what the law requires. In the case of tabulation, that seems pretty clearly an executive responsibility. The rules for tabulation seem to be pretty clearly a legislative responsibility.
If one doesn’t like that arrangement, then one is free to advocate for changing the Constitution! An amendment such as ‘The President or his delegate may issue a law defining weights and measures’ would work. I think that it’d be a bad idea, because it gives too much authority to one man (imagine if some future president issued a law defining that any use of the meter is to be punished with death …).
Here in Sweden, if the amount isn't clearly presented, there's no agreement to pay the specified amount, so there's no contract and no obligation to pay-- an agreement becomes binding because of the reasonable expectation of a party on the counterparty.
I don't understand American contract law, since I even see ideas like changing agreements, which are completely contrary to the very notion of a contracts as I understand it, so it's nice that something is done about these strange practices.
I don't understand how it's come to this point though. That courts have been willing to tolerate things that aren't in the contract (i.e. changes to contracts), provisions that aren't clear, etc., and complex and strange provisions even in contracts of adhesion and things presented to consumers.
Occasionally this is unavoidable--shipping charges. If they simply pass through what UPS charges, fine. Otherwise, they should be listed up front.
With regard to shipping charges, don't you choose your shipping options and get to see the price before buying?
Sales tax is also usually added in at the very end, again because it depends on where the buyer is.
The difference here is that the "hidden junk fees" are just extra money they charge, with no real defence. For example, Ticketmaster loves their arbitrary "convenience fee", Airbnb was long known for "cleaning fees" (though they've improved here), etc. These are things that the seller knows they're going to charge beforehand and clearly they do this purely to trick our brains into thinking things are cheaper.
If you just add a fine with a threshold it is actually much harder to pick the right fine amount. This way it has some sort of degree of scaling naturally. A small delay is less costly to you than a long delay rather than being all-or-nothing.
I agree that for simple things like unsubscribing a button can be mandated, but for other causes of calls to customer support it isn't that simple.
We left their crap in a room for ~6 months total at the advise of his estate lawyer. Eventually they did accept that he was dead and canceled the account as well as sent a box to send the equipment back.
They got their equipment back after it had all had an unexpected encounter with a hammer. Never heard a peep about it.
When they buy a debt, they rarely get comprehensive documentation.
It's far from a good solution, but it should at least put you in a better position vis-a-vis the courts if it comes to that.
Furthermore, there's an entire category of people for whom "talk on the phone" is not an option, period. If they wanted to cancel by the approved method, they'd not only need to take that time themselves, they'd need someone else willing to take that time with them.
I've seen Americans living in Europe get bitten by this quite frequently in some countries, where sending something to collections is both commonly done and the collection agency will successfully take you to court and win in almost all cases even for pennies.
On the other hand, the EU has had "two-click cancellation" regulations for a while now, so there is a better alternative available for both sides (customer and company).
If you misrepresent that you have and they are just ignoring you, you might practically get away with it, but do know that that kind of misrepresentation might get you into trouble some day.
If however the merchant is actually unreachable for a bona fide cancellation request, that's totally on them.
"I attempted to reach them via phone on or about _____, ___. No remedy was achieved."
Disputes should have been the backstop to incentivizing the market to making cancellations easier, but things apparently didn't pan out that way. So arguably, the free market has had its chance, and it's time for regulations.
They do this to increase profits.
A certain portion of the population is pro-profit at virtually any cost.
It might seem like Dish employees wake up every day and say, "What can we do today to screw our customers even more?" But usually they're just trying to find ways to make more money.
To be fair, satellite TV has always been one of these even when it was a healthy business. High cost of acquisition, high commission for sales, high barrier to cancel.
Dish did do something sort of similar years ago though, don’t know if they still do, but they did some thing where your DVR would automatically record all primetime shows, so in that way, as long as you were ok waiting for the next day, in a sense, “everything was on demand.” https://www.reddit.com/r/dishnetwork/s/e0wspFb7zq
Made the mistake of buying a boost mobile sim this year. It was “expired” upon opening it. Retailer refused to refund it.
Having not learned my lesson yet, I went elsewhere and ripped it open to check the expiration date this time before I bought it.
Well “it’s prepaid for 90 days and comes with 35 gigs” it says on the card.
Go to activate it, it puts a further $100 on my credit card and congratulates me for activating my 30 gig service plan.
Hokey frauds.
Their aggressive data throttling always rubbed me the wrong way, along with the Extreme data pricing, considering it was on Sprint's terrible network.
Shit flows downhill. Their owner, Charlie Ergan, wakes up every day thinking of new ways to defraud the government with DISH and Echostar: https://nypost.com/2024/03/22/us-news/doj-moved-to-dismiss-3...
I usually complain about his spectrum squatting with DISH, but there's so much more if you dig a little.
But you repeat yourself.
[1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/10/...
Except that's not the proposed rule. The way this works in California (and the way the rule the FTC recently published works, I believe) is that a business is required to allow customers to cancel "in the same medium" that they subscribed. That doesn't require anyone to start running a website.
The rest of your post is just arguing against something that's not even happening.
Corporations act strategically. They typically don't immediately thwart new laws because the coalition that passed them is still intact and would try to do something about it. So they wait a minute, maybe take the time to buy some more legislators, before testing the fences again.
If people have forgotten about them by then you lose, and if people haven't forgotten about them by then, California passes the 2024 law and you lose the other way. Because they pass the new law in addition to rather than instead of the old one, even though the old one has stopped working, so you have a ratchet of ever-increasing compliance costs that also apply to all the companies that were never doing anything wrong to begin with but still have to hire lawyers to evaluate their activities against an entire bookshelf of rules to see if any of them require something they're not doing.
Is there something in the proposed rule that actually says this? And if so, what happens to the small business that does cancellations over email/phone and therefore requires human interaction?
> And if the process takes time (there are times I think confirmations are warranted) once that's been done the cancellation takes place at the time of your original request. (Which you can screenshot.)
The issue isn't that you care if the cancellation happens at 9AM or 9PM, it's that if you have to wait twelve hours to speak to a representative you give up before reaching the point you can make the request.
Otherwise people who signed up under the wife's name may try to cancel under the husband's name and you don't know who they are, neighbors who don't like the racket from the equipment see your website on the trucks and try to cancel the service even though they're not the customer because you have no authentication, people want to cancel because they've moved and give you their new address instead of the one they're subscribed under, people make ambiguous or incomplete requests and you don't know what they're asking to do. But if you have to contact them to clarify you're not satisfying the requirement that they can cancel via the website.
What do you mean?
You go to the website, it has a form where you fill in your name and address and what service you want. They don't need any further information to send you an invoice. As soon as you pay it, landscapers come to your house and mow your lawn, and then each month you get another invoice until you cancel. That's a subscription; you signed up on the website using the form.
If you have a cancel form it does matter, because it has to match the one used to sign up or they don't know who you are, even if the customer doesn't remember which one they used. Or any number of other issues with matching the request to a subscription.
Humans can sort this out, but then you can't cancel on the website. Computers can also sort this out, but then you need sophisticated programming instead of a basic form. It's not symmetrical.
What percent? (Citation needed if it's anything greater than 1%) What does "virtually" mean? This statement has no details and just comes across as political dogwhistling as a result.
> What does "virtually" mean?
virtually /vûr′choo͞-ə-lē/ adverb Almost but not quite; nearly.
I expect people to not make claims without evidence. I never asked for a study, either - that's you misreading my comment. I asked for a citation, which could be a public poll - some empirical evidence, as opposed to none.
> virtually /vûr′choo͞-ə-lē/ adverb Almost but not quite; nearly.
This is an intentional misinterpretation of my question, as well as being sarcastic to mock and emotionally attack me. Any reasonable reader would have known that I meant "what value does virtually mean here?"
You're intentionally being deceptive and emotionally manipulative to push a political agenda. Don't do that.
> Any advertised price must include all mandatory taxes and fees. No exceptions.
For the second just have a law that says:
> An end user must be allowed to use the same method to cancel as they used to sign up for the service. No exceptions. Additionally, an end user cannot be required to perform more manual actions to cancel than was required to sign up. No exceptions.
No one should be against this except greedy corporations. Easily solved, common sense rules that already have working examples in the real world. 1 is already the law in Netherlands and Australia and these countries aren’t falling over from the undue burden placed on businesses.
I’ll end with: two cornerstones of a free market are price transparency and the ability/mobility to switch services when a better competing offering emerges. Not having legislation like above to protect those values is anti capitalistic
Free airfare to Hawaii!
Fee for paying by cash: $1000 Fee for paying by check: $1100 Fee for paying by credit card: $1050 Fee for middle seat: $200 Fee for window seat: $300 Fee for aisle seat: $250
Note that no fee on this list is mandatory because you always have other options.
It becomes trickier when the fee is elective, but a significant part of the advertisement. Southwest Airlines complaining about having to advertise their fares, which come with two bags included, alongside other airlines who don’t include any bags comes to mind. I think there is probably some world where elective fees are included as well though this seems more nebulous.
However, let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good: Even just including everything that is compulsory in the base price itself, including taxes, would be a massive improvement to the status quo. Fixing this elective fee ambiguity would be a next step
The (hypothetical) airfare was listed as "free", but it was impossible to end up paying less than $1200 for it.
The point being that even if you have a choice between several fees (making none of them "mandatory" by a narrow reading), you're still paying something beyond the advertised base price.
The logical good-faith rule in a case like this would be that you must advertise at least the minimum price anyone would end up paying based on the available "fee choices".
This insistence at having EXACT WORDS for things that aren't exact is just naivety, thinking the world is can be divided perfectly into categories if we just make the categories specific enough!
You cannot.
- In the EU, what can legally be defined as a "sale" price (e.g. 20% off till Friday! deals) uses very precise verbiage that states an item must be at a certain percentage higher for a specific period of time (typically 30 days) to constitute a sale.
- In the USA, the regulations basically say that companies should make a good faith effort to not deceive consumers with sale prices. It leaves defining what a good faith effort is as an exercise to the reader (states).
The end result is that you have a lot more misleading price info in the States, since all manner of questionably legal manipulation tactics are used and enforcement of this is lax.
It's really not a practical problem in any country that has the appropriate laws. The only thing it takes to fix this is the political will to do so.
I recently ordered cake for $x, with a mandatory selection of "size". The only possible size was "large", which cost an add-on fee of $3. Just make that type of stuff illegal yesterday. Absolutely nothing of value will be lost.
for many people, any kind of regulation that restricts companies abilities to make money, regardless of the consequences for average citizen, is "wasteful and discourages innovation". Elon would like to get rid of the FTC altogether for that reason, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was set up to help protect users from scammy behavior like this.
so yeah, don't hold your breath for the next 4 years (or longer if Elon manages to buy the next election too)
Making wage information more accessible to workers being a policy he- an Austrian School economist- supports.
This government ruling falls under that class of policies IMO. It makes prices much more available to consumers and does not on first inspection threaten to distort supply and demand.
Chargeback: "attempted to cancel via phone."
Done.
If the free market had it's way we'd still be under the yoke of Standard Oil and Ma Bell.
One key element of a free market is the "well informed consumer". How is the consumer supposed to be informed about what new cutting edge chemicals are toxic, for instance?
Consumer protection regulations, especially those regarded trading and credit, cast a very long shadow (ray of sunlight?) you're possibly unaware of, but still immensely benefit from.
Obviously there are diminishing returns and unintended/negative effects to consumers too sometimes, but throwing protections out completely in favor of a "pure free market" doesn't do these asymmetries justice.
In a truly free market cancellation would be implicit by no longer paying.
There are primary indicators that you use to decide whether to make a purchase, and then there are other (let's call them secondary) indicators.
Primary is stuff like "the advertised price" and "the claimed features/service." Secondary is stuff like "have I ever heard that this company does shitty things" and "is there going to be a BS fee added to the total right before I click 'charge'?"
Once you're in their snare, a company benefits from being shitty. Plenty of people will pay the junk fee (did they even notice?) -- the important part is that your advertised price ranks near the competition. Plenty of people will sign up for a service that is difficult to cancel -- the important part is that the price starts out reasonable and that the service is adequate.
Even if the company is run by true saints, raising that sticker price to reflect the true price is anti-competitive! We can't be the only ones being honest! And they're right. That's why a law is needed to address it.
edit: Perhaps you were being sarcastic. Felt good to state my opinion, anyway :)
Well, depends which people, I suppose: subscribers or providers...
But require it to be practical to do online, with no delays and no requirement about when relative to renewals.
Better, in my opinion, is a clear and easy way to "uncancel" if you accidentally cancel. But even that can be abused: "Here's a button that looks like a confirmation, but actually it's a resubscribe button." It's just too tempting to make that "number of people who resubscribed after cancelling" number a target. You think you're reminding the customer of their mistake, but really you're just optimizing the dark pattern.
P.S. this is also a good summary of every all in podcast episode post election
The idea that these institutions, like FTC, are bad for consumers, and this new blind faith that things must be deregulated because the market will solve it for the better is going to be interesting.
By the way, when things turn bad, it's we who will pay the price again for this deregulation, not billionaires. It's like people are choosing fantasy and magical thinking over History... 2008 wasn't that long ago.
It feels like she's just against any acquisitions by large companies, and I think that's both too broad of a stance for the FTC to take (as opposed to really looking on a case-by-case basis of whether consumers would be hurt by an acquisition) and also harmful to new companies being created, since suddenly an important option for exits is a whole lot less likely as large companies hesitate to be acquisitive.
How does her term work?
Seats on the FTC are supposed to last for 7 years. She was nominated in 2021 and her term technically expired a couple months ago. Apparently she gets to remain in it until a replacement is appointed.
Has she just been filling in the remainder of someone else's term, like Laphonza Butler as CA Senator?
The prior chairman, Joseph Simons, had this same seat that Khan has now, so for him his term was also nominally set to expire September 2024. He resigned when the administration changed over in 2021.
Take airlines, for example—if one shows a $200 ticket and another shows $180 but sneaks in $30 of fees later, the second one appears cheaper. By requiring prices to reflect the full cost upfront, businesses compete on the actual price rather than deceptive practices. This won’t magically lower costs, but it will force clarity and reward companies offering genuine value.
Consumers should have a clear picture of what they’re paying, not a surprise at checkout. Isn’t that just fair competition?
For example, I've been booking a group trip lately, and I found that the sticker prices for some things didn't include many fees, so it was more of a hassle to actually get accurate quotes. At the same time, the companies which were providing these prices have an incentive to hide fees, because that's what all their competitors are doing – they have pressure to be competitive both at first glance and at checkout.
With a level playing field, these fees should be incorporated into the total price across competitors, allowing for easier cross-shopping. I'm excited to be more confident I can quote what I see initially vs. going through a checkout flow.
If prices are perceived as high from the moment someone searches for it they may be more tempted to check elsewhere or opt out.
2. Let airlines compete on transparent pricing. I think this alone is enough of a benefit to this move.
Airlines are probably not the best example. A lot of people probably want cheaper airfares even if it means less/poorer service in a lot of ways.
But it should be as transparent up-front as possible. Even if infrequent travelers may not always understand the details.
When purchasing concert tickets recently I got a "mobile convenience fee" for an e-ticket even though the venue doesn't operate a physical box office. A recent hotel had a "resort fee" that was not opt-out even if you didn't use the amenities it allegedly paid for. These kinds of BS fees should go away.
I think we're agreeing. While a lot of airline fees are nickel-and-diming, they're also over and above transporting people from A to B, in many cases for as little money as they want to spend as possible.
Recently in California, restaurant have been great at making their prices as difficult as possible to try to figure out.
I'm okay with things being expensive - I'd prefer if they weren't but that's the way to the world - I'm not okay with things being expensive and companies advertising them at a far lower price.
Free markets depend on information. Facts. Not lies.
The people that claim to support "free markets" really just mean they support corporations being free to do whatever the hell they want.
A free market needs regulation to maintain competition. Companies dislike competition because it lowers profits, and will do what they can to avoid competing on a level playing field. Like adding hidden fees.
The first is what you're arguing, a version that includes "free of monopolies" in the definition. A market full of competition. A market that has no choice but to serve their customers to the best they can because otherwise a competitor will take their customers.
The second are the anarcho-capitalists. They have the naive belief that corporations that do bad things will be punished by the market, making regulations unnecessary and stifling. To them, if one business is winning due to deceit, then the blame lies in the customer for being deceived. They think the decision that leads to the most profit is the best, side-effects be damned. They're insufferable and would gladly destroy the planet for an extra 5% profit on their quarterly reports.
I'd say it's stupidity. In the Dietrich Bonhöffer way of thinking. Stupidity in large numbers (perhaps tribalism), is a greater danger to good than evil.
Naive shilling for the capitalists doesn't get you anything, except more expensive concert tickets that is.
So let me ask you one question. Who do you think will pay more:
1. the person who sees all the costs upfront
2. the person who at the end of the deal will see additional fees
please tell me it is 1 and tell all of us how it is you "who understands basic economics"
But this looks genuinely good! It's basically banning fraud.
---[EDIT], since everyone is asking for reasons here are two libertarian/conservative critiques:
Pro-market: pro-market advocates for policies that enhance competition and market efficiency. Understands that god markets are made. Pro-market advocates believe in creating conditions where businesses can compete fairly without undue advantages from government favoritism. Government regulation can be essential to correct market failures and promote a level playing field.
Free market: and ideological stance where markets are without government intervention. Belief in ideal world where market failures don't exist and if they exists that's a good thing.
no, markets without government intervention are called "laissez-faire" markets. There would be no need for that term if that's what free market meant.
I'm not following here: are you suggesting that given any two different words, it is impossible for them to refer to the same thing or mean the same thing?
There'd always been a belief in early capitalists that an unregulated market would be inherently self-regulating from competition, in a way that allowed for competition, and yeah, well, I would emphasise the word "belief" in that.
I once met a theologian who had done their PhD on the language used by a politically powerful neoliberal group in their writings on the market and came to the conclusion that it was primarily the language of faith, not the language of science.
Shit, even Hayek opposed laissez-faire markets in some areas.
That was probably before the internet was invented. These days, a typical online libertarian opposes all government action as violence, but when you mention fraud, it's like: "but who decides what is or isn't fraud? if the customer signed a contract, it was their revealed preference to get scammed..."
Where the free market fans see child slavery and sexual slavery and rejoice (free to make any contract you want to after all), the pro market people believe that if you just put enough guard rails on it, greed will magically turn into a force for good.
Obviously I also have an ideology, but at least I'm honest enough to not pretend that capitalism (or communism/anarchy) are naturally occuring, instead of simply a choice we make.
Realist: "the free market has flaws, which can be addressed by..."
Replace "free market" with anything you like
The definition of realist has flaws...
to the contrary, she's great for free, competitive markets
she's just not good for winner-take-all M&A investors, and _that_ is a good thing
the average American - and even the average investor - will not benefit from her departure
The Reason piece is lazy drive-by snark. Calling the anti-trust standards of the 20c "hipster anti-trust" is just a-historical. Blocking consolidation of national chains is hardly some crazy innovation. In fact, it was Bork who was the rebel introducing the stricter "consumer harm" standard. People might argue which is the appropriate standard -- the one invented during the 1890s to break the most powerful trusts in history, or the one invented by a Regan appointee in 1980 to replace it. But the Reason snark does nothing except claim it.
At least the WSJ makes an actual argument about consumer harm. Unfortunately, their argument is: there has been so much consolidation in distribution, we need to consolidate retail to increase their bargaining power to balance. Given the geographical nature of grocery shopping, consolidation is likely to reduce consumer bargaining power further. That the WSJ fails to acknowledge the obvious fact that the greater power of a merged entity would act on both sides of the market is bad-faith.
The free market shouldn't allow monopolies, or duopolies to form. Bad businesses should fail, not absorb more capital and continue scaling.
We have a dysfunctional Congress that can't/won't legislate to fill gaps that emerge over time with new circumstances. Someone will step in to fill those gaps. Sounds like you'd prefer to have corporate execs do so, focused largely on their stock prices, bonuses, and promotion prospects — cf. paperclip-maximizing AGIs [0] — than to have a citizen-advocate do so.
[0] https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/squiggle-maximizer-formerly-pa... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence
But every sport punishes competitors who are cheating or being unsportsmanlike. As it should be in the marketplace. But hackers and the EU and US bureaucrats think that being a leader in a market has to be punished for being a "monopoly". While always turning a blind eye to rampant fraud and scams that are in the marketplace everywhere online and offline.
Almost all North American sports have a player entry draft, where the weighting is based on your success. The best teams (eg the Detroit Red Wings of the 90’s and 00’s) are given garbage draft picks, while the bottom-feeders (eg the Edmonton Oilers of the late 00’s-early 10’s) are given (the opportunity for) superstars. This is clearly a punishment for doing well, and a reward for being terrible.
Did he cheat? No, everyone used a similar amount of steroids. But to anyone with eyes and a basic knowledge of the sport it's overwhelmingly obvious that the organizers and judges threw it in his favor because of the attention it would bring.
Which is the issue when an entity becomes too big to fail. There is a power disparity that is virtually impossible to overcome as the leverage is so much that any opponent can be swat down with ease.
Things such as:
- leveraging economies of scale when dealing with suppliers and resources to the point of starving access to competition
- using lobbyists to write legislation in their favor or blockade opponents
- doing fuck all with no reservations, then pay out lawsuits and fines at an order of magnitude less than profit made and damage done
So your analogy is very terrible, unless Simone Biles was bribing sports officials to change the rules to effectively prevent other gymnasts competing against her.
A better analogy for a monopoly in a free market is allelopathy in plants, where you actively modify the environment to starve out competitors.
This is a provocative claim. Do you have any examples?
Constantly winning in a competitive environment with no runaway feedback loops[0] is evidence of cheating.
See also, casinos: the "legitimate" ones don't rig the game - they know the odds; they expect you to win something here and then, but if they see you winning consistently, they'll rightfully assume you're cheating somehow, and ban you from the venue.
> But every sport punishes competitors who are cheating or being unsportsmanlike. As it should be in the marketplace.
Marketplace isn't like sportsball. It's like war. On the market like in war, anything goes. The only people who can afford living under delusion of market sportsmanship are people who are already so well-off and safe they can treat it as a game; for everyone else, it's a matter of life and death.
> But hackers and the EU and US bureaucrats think that being a leader in a market has to be punished for being a "monopoly".
The market isn't some divine ball game, or a magic ritual. It's a feedback system, with known failure modes. Wrt. monopolies, in particular, any good profit-seeking actor will aim at becoming a monopolist in their market segment, because that's how they can maximize profits while minimizing effort. At the same time, the market serves a critical function in organizing human society - but that stops working when monopolies pop up.
It's really very simple: all the goods and services and advancement we enjoy require market players to be actively putting in effort. To society, an entrepreneur is basically a donkey with a pole mounted to it, from which there hangs a carrot, just out of reach - the donkey just wants to grab the carrot, but the society only benefits when the donkey is chasing it. The donkey needs to believe they can win, so it keeps running, but it also can never be allowed to actually get their prize, because then it'll stop. That's why markets are regulated as to let people and companies grow and accumulate winnings, until a point, past which they'd stop participating (or worse, just go screwing around breaking things).
I.e. it's not about punishing someone for winning - it's about preventing them from complete victory, because then they become useless to society.
> While always turning a blind eye to rampant fraud and scams that are in the marketplace everywhere online and offline.
Who's turning a blind eye to it? Fraud and scams are the base state of the market; it's what it decays to if left to its own devices. Regulations are there to counteract this tendency.
--
[0] - Feedback loops like compounding interest. In sports, unlike in the economy, you can't just reinvest your win to get more wins, and then reinvest them in turn, until you're winning so much so fast that no one can ever hope to catch up with you.
Right. How did Usain Bolt cheat? How did Michael Phelps cheat? How did ABBA cheat?
> any good profit-seeking actor will aim at becoming a monopolist in their market segment
Of course. And then hackers redefine the market segment to encompass that businesses product and ta-da, you have a monopoly. Like Apple.
If we're talking about real monopolies, then I couldn't agree more. But what hackers and the EU are doing is redefining monopoly in a dishonest way because they have personal grudges against a company.
> The donkey needs to believe they can win, so it keeps running, but it also can never be allowed to actually get their prize, because then it'll stop.
Here's something to blow your mind: The donkey enjoys running. Or let's take a real life example: sled dogs. They love pulling the sled. Entrepreneurs love working and love competing. Those who don't love it usually pull out of the game with their profits way before they have even national impact.
This is a huge divide in attitude I've seen everywhere in the world in my life. You have category X of people who see all kind of work as an immense suffering. They complain endlessly, do the minimum effort, and never get anywhere. And you have category Y of people who love working, because it's doing something productive and learning. That doesn't mean that they're satisfied with being abused wage slaves. Rather it is the first category who never advances in life, because they think it's all a scam. People in the second category also fail a lot because they take chances. But they usually get up again.
> Who's turning a blind eye to it? Fraud and scams are the base state of the market; it's what it decays to if left to its own devices. Regulations are there to counteract this tendency.
All governments and law enforcement seem to be turning a blind eye to it. About 50% of advertisements on Facebook and Instagram are outright scams, ie physical products from brand names that are advertised at bargain prices and if you "buy" it you will not get delivery because it is an outright scam. US and EU governments should fine Meta billions of dollars for having their main source of income from organized crime and fraud. But they are focused on completely irrelevant crap like app stores. Talk about sieving mosquitoes and swallowing camels.
I totally understand why billionaires do, on the other hand. Worth watching Reid Hoffman embarrass himself on Jake Tapper on the subject of Khan recently for those interested
We're at an unprecedented levels of wealth inequality in America. Billion dollar businesses built on tax payer money, should contribute to the system. Instead we've designed a system where these companies would rather pay millions of dollars in campaign contributions and to lobbyists.
The paragon of good and sensible arguments like, "Legalize Insider Trading".
This author has not written one of those pieces, but she is in good company with the ones who did.
It says that she has been bad for them but there is no proof of this.
Instead it makes quite a comical attempt at trying to vaguely point at the sky and say she is evil or overreaching, but she is not and anyone whoa actually wants a free market can tell you that. I honestly just cannot understand what happened to Reason I checked some more or their side articles and wow the quality has dropped to a level that would make the NYT blush.
The main complaint is that the Khan FTC by default is against all mergers and acquisitions.
This is different from the previous standard that only mergers that harm consumers are bad. So now even mergers that benefit consumers are blocked.
EDIT: to make it easier here's a list of actions from perplexity:
Here are more explicit actions taken by the FTC under Lina Khan's leadership:
Lawsuit against Amazon (2023): The FTC filed a landmark antitrust case accusing Amazon of monopolistic practices in its online marketplace and Prime subscription service.
Meta (Facebook) lawsuit (2023): The FTC sued Meta to block its acquisition of virtual reality app maker Within Unlimited, citing concerns about monopolization in the VR market.
Microsoft-Activision merger challenge (2023): The FTC attempted to block Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, though it ultimately failed.
Kroger-Albertsons merger: A U.S. district court judge ruled in favor of the FTC to block the proposed $25 billion merger between these two major supermarket chains
Nvidia's acquisition of Arm: The FTC sued to block this merger, though it's not explicitly mentioned in the search results
Amazon's acquisition of iRobot: While not explicitly mentioned in the search results, this is another high-profile merger that the FTC has challenged under Khan's leadership.
Enforcement against data brokers (2022-2023): The FTC took action against several data brokers for selling precise geolocation data that could be used to track people's movements.
Zoom settlement (2021): The FTC finalized a settlement with Zoom over allegations of deceptive security practices.
Right to Repair initiative (2021): Khan's FTC unanimously voted to ramp up law enforcement against repair restrictions that prevent small businesses, workers, and consumers from fixing their own products.
Made in USA labeling rule (2021): The FTC finalized a new rule cracking down on marketers who make false, unqualified claims that their products are Made in the USA.
Penalties for fake reviews (2022): The FTC imposed multi-million dollar penalties on companies for using fake reviews and suppressing negative reviews.
Action against "dark patterns" (2021-2023): The FTC has taken action against companies using deceptive design practices known as "dark patterns" to trick consumers.
Increased use of Penalty Offense Authority: The FTC has revived its Penalty Offense Authority to seek civil penalties for violations of FTC administrative orders.
Ban on hidden junk fees: The FTC announced a rule requiring companies to show full prices for items like hotel rooms, concert tickets, and sporting events upfront, rather than hiding fees until the end of the checkout process
Changes to merger review process: The FTC has altered principles, practices, and policies of merger review that had been in place for decades
Expanded scope of enforcement: The FTC has taken a more holistic approach to identifying harms affecting workers, independent businesses, and consumers, with a focus on addressing power asymmetries and unlawful practices
Rulemaking changes: Chair Khan has orchestrated wholesale changes in FTC rulemaking practices and policies
Proposed ban on noncompete clauses: The FTC has proposed banning noncompete clauses in employer agreements
Increased focus on data privacy: The FTC has sued multiple companies for allegedly sharing customer data and warned about the "hidden impacts" of advertising tools like third-party tracking pixels
I wish they banned all mandatory add-ons. If I don't have the choice it should be part of the base price.
The touristic railroad near me advertises a price, and then slaps on a mandatory Fuel Surcharge and Historic Preservation Fee.
Excuse me? How can I compare what I'm going to spend my money on if you're just allowed to lie to me?
Sidenote on fuel cost:
Fuel is almost back to pre-COVID costs https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=e...
and once you add in inflation it's even cheaper.
You're not supposed to, that's the point. It's frankly shocking (and also not, but you know) how much businesses in America are allowed to bullshit you.
I signed on with a telco for high speed internet when we bought our house for $65 a month and by the time we got fiber and I could finally tell them to kick rocks, the bill had soared to nearly $200 for the exact same service over the course of 4 years. Why? Because they can, and go fuck yourself.
A hotel stay for a vacation was supposed to cost $851, but they demanded a $300 pre-authorization on top of that. Why? Because they can. I wasn't notified ahead of time, absolutely nowhere was this information given to me. And I could take that on fine, but why is this allowed? What if I wasn't so fortunate and was traveling by air, do I just sleep in a box because the hotel can't guarantee I'll be able to pay for $300 worth of room service I have no intention of buying?
I feel like this just happens everywhere now, I just expect it. I expect to get fucked over in one way or another, and on the one hand I'm sure it's my anxiety, but on the other hand there is so much expensive arbitrary nonsense that's just plunked down in front of me, and yeah, most of it I can handle fine, because I work in tech and make good wages. So I guess just fuck everyone who grew up at the income level I got, because I am fucking sure that my single mother trying her hardest as she was, wouldn't be able to get by if I was born like 15-20 years later than I was.
Edit: Oh and FUCK every politician who has ever farted out words something like "responsible consumption of healthcare" because sweet Jesus, healthcare billing is an utter nightmare. I don't think I have EVER, EVER in my entire life had some kind of medical event where I knew the costs going in that were then reflected afterwards. It's just all made the fuck up on the fly with no respect for the patients, when they are already stressed out and scared.
There's actually an administrative code in Washington that furniture (and maybe other) stores are only allowed to have a "Going out of business" sale _once a year_.
Never bought anything from there since it seemed so incredibly sketchy. Then at last it went out of business properly and a U-Haul took over the space.
it would be fairer if this were opt-in. Some e commerce sites now allow you to pay a few extra dollars to have free returns, something similar would work for movies.
whereas buying a ticket in advance online, and then later refunding it (but losing the convenience fee), is common. "peace of mind knowing your spot is reserved" is what i mean by an option on the seat.
now maybe i'm in fact wrong and all convenience fees are exactly passing through the credit card/fandango fees etc., but in practice it sure looks like an option.
Not necessarily that I agree with it though -- in many parts of the world you have no such fees when you buy a movie ticket online.
I don't necessarily agree with them either. It seems mutually beneficial to the venue to allow me to buy tickets digitally. It made sense maybe 20-25 years ago when the move online was a significant update to the then status quo. Now, it's just a revenue stream they don't want to give up that consumers see as the status quo, so why remove it? (from their perspective)
Because it would display the nightly rate as $X.
But then at checkout, it would add in "house cleaning fees" etc (which I don't dispute is a fair fee to include) but it at times can grossly misrepresent what your true nightly cost is when searching.
Maybe this will be a step in the direction like Telco's have had to do with creating simplified & standardized "nutrition labels" for pricing.
Not including fees in the nightly rate makes sense as some are fixed rate, and having the option to see the cost for the total stay (including fees) solves the problem.
If you search for an area without dates, it comes up with some arbitrary dates and applies the fees and displays per night cost accordingly.
So it's technically possible. They just don't want to.
It can be done. Marriott show the total including taxes. Mind you, this was as a result of a legal settlement, so they get no credit.
At least on booking.com it depends on what settings you have.
We all know it is a scam fee. People wouldn't be as mad over a hold on some amount (usually returned) insuring the host against an egregious sloppy mess.
The price on the tag, is exactly what you pay (same with services, like hotels).
Since this is Japan, it's a high price, but no surprises.
Also, the service is amazing, and they won't accept tips. If you leave money on the table, they will chase after you, to give it back.
I visited Japan some years back and loved this aspect of the culture as well. An Australian ski guide (this was a winter visit) explained it like so: "the Japanese attitude is to want to do a good job by default. Tipping implies that a good job is only done because of pay. The Japanese see quality service as intrinsically valuable in itself."
I have a friend that basically shops as part of her job. She has been power-shopping, mostly in Europe (dream job, I suppose), for decades.
She tells me that she runs into the same sales associates, year after year, and has watched them “grow up” over years.
So it seems to be possible, at least in Europe, for people to make lifelong careers in the service industry.
HN folks are privileged. We have careers that interest us, engage us, and reward us.
That's not the norm, in this world. I'm grateful for my career. I know quite a few folks that make excellent money, doing jobs they hate. In my mind, that's kind of a nightmare.
https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/icon_uk/11800056/855574/8555...
One of the big differences between here in Japan and other parts of the world I’ve visited and lived in, is the near absence of service staff who actively make a point of looking like they hate their life and treat you like crap, though this is slowly changing here too.
As a kid, having grown up in the UK I knew that if the price label said £1.99 and I had £2 in my pocket I could afford it, with £0.01 change. First time I went to the USA as a young teenager I remember being quite embarrassed when the thing I thought I was getting for $1.99 was actually not $1.99 but $2.17 or whatever, and I had to leave without buying. Felt quite deceptive and totally incomprehensible.
In the case of sales tax, it's deliberate propaganda. "Here's what we would have charged you if it weren't for greedy old Uncle Sam."
All the while the prices you see as a shopper are inclusive.
The price excluding tax is the only one you can read at a distance, that draws you in. As someone from the UK who is used to seeing price tags show the final price you pay at the till, I was constantly disappointed that items weren't quite such a bargain as I'd first hoped.
On the whole there are still many things that are much cheaper than in the UK though :)
I traveled to Tokyo for over 20 years, and always paid what was on the sticker.
I was told that the tax was included in the price.
I remember one of my bigger purchases, was a ¥75,000 Oceanus watch, and that was exactly what I paid.
As a tourist you don't always have to pay the consumption tax though.
I remember the saleswoman asking to see my passport, when I was buying the watch (it was that big department store in Akihabara).
Also, while it is the norm in Japan to include the tax, there are some exceptions.
(Japan has 2 rates, 8% for certain items like food, and 10% for everything else).
Have you ever heard the term "Fronting"? In most stores, employees are required to individually ensure each and every item on the shelf is organized and pulled to the front for optimum display. They do this sometimes multiple times a day. In busier stores, you will have to restock high volume items multiple times per day.
The technology for digital pricetags has been cheaply available since the first kindle in the late 2000s. Most companies have avoided spending the money on buying them because the cost of labor in America is cheap enough that you can just have the normal employees do it every day. Digital pricetags are only now becoming common. Mostly because store companies are trying to figure out a way to charge you a personalized price that takes as much of your money as possible.
Yet at any given moment, every proprietor is miraculously able calculate the taxes due at the point of sale. The variety of tax regimes, and the fact that the amounts change doesn't impact the ability to calculate the final amount due.
Where in the US do the sales tax rates change so frequently? I've never seen this.
There is a caveat -- if you count the "sales tax holidays" in various US states, it means in those places, tax rates for some products change at least twice a year -- from 7% to 0% then back to 7%, for example.
That's the norm, not the exception, in developed countries.
It's obviously not the norm in countries that have sales taxes which vary by locality.
Whether a country is "developed" or not has nothing to do with it. The vast majority of countries in Africa have a VAT, while the world's richest country has a sales tax.
Why not? If each store or restaurant or theatre or whatever in each locality know what price to bill you, they know the applicable price to show you upfront.
> Whether a country is "developed" or not has nothing to do with it. The vast majority of countries in Africa have a VAT, while the world's richest country has a sales tax.
The relevance of developed or not is how much of the economy is informal or includes a part of negotiation.
Because it makes state-level or national-level advertising of prices impossible. Or even local-level in many cases.
> The relevance of developed or not is how much of the economy is informal or includes a part of negotiation.
No it doesn't, where are you getting that? Feel free to browse:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developed_country
and Ctrl+F for "informal" or "negotiation". There are a lot of indicators of developing vs developed countries, but your idea is most assuredly not one of them. Also, sales tax vs VAT has nothing to do with an informal economy or price negotiation either.
In large countries like Canada, and I would imagine the US, you probably don't want to advertise prices nationally. The cost of goods to will be different for a business in Vancouver and Southern Ontario compared to the Atlantic Provinces. Never mind small towns in remote communities connected to the road network, such as Northern Ontario. Especially never mind small towns in remote communities that are not connected to the road network.
Hardly impossible, just slightly less easy ("available for $X* (pre-tax)" / "starting at $X").
And are seriously claiming that ease for advertisers takes precedence over ease of use and pricing transparency for consumers?
> and Ctrl+F for "informal" or "negotiation". There are a lot of indicators of developing vs developed countries, but your idea is most assuredly not one of them. Also, sales tax vs VAT has nothing to do with an informal economy or price negotiation either.
Thank you. What I meant was that the only reason it might not be the standard in some developing countries is that they might have more informal economies with more negotiations involved. Literally the only legitimate excuse. But when that's not the case, from Morocco to Sri Lanka to Uzbekistan, price is shown upfront, everything included.
The exception here is also the holiday surcharge (an extra fee on holidays and Sundays), which has to be "disclosed" before ordering. Usually there is a small sign somewhere that nobody pays attention to.
It's crazy to me that in the US I can never be sure how much I'll end up paying...
Nobody's trying to fool you by not including sales taxes. There's just no way to show them in advance, unless you want to start typing your address and zip code into every shopping website before you even browse.
If I'm signed in to the shop from making a previous purchase, they will use the location of the previous purchase.
But this isn't about Denmark -- it is about the US.
In the US, there are over 13,000 different sales tax jurisdictions, and each one of them may have a different tax rate.
I wish the best to anyone who would ever be tasked with sorting that out with any semblance of accuracy using IP geolocation databases.
Just a thought...
Nationally (or as some may prefer, "federallly"), the sales tax rate is already zero -- and has always been zero.
To add on for any else trying to figure out the 13k number from this statement.
Counties can also apply their own additional taxes.
Cities can also apply their own additional taxes.
On top of just that, the cities and counties can set different taxes in the same area, such as a sugar tax or an alcohol tax or even a pre-prepared food tax vs groceries. It gets complicated fast.
per state, I understand the tax. set it per state, and be done with it. maybe split it in some % with the city (I don't know if cities directly get a portion of it already or not?), so it's a win-win.
But even assuming "good enough" IP geolocation exists: In order for this to be implemented both uniformly and nationally, we'd need a new constitutional amendment that would grant the federal government the ability to regulate how sales taxes work within states.
Because right now, we have this: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Items I order at home are subject to a 7.25% sales tax rate.
My neighbor across the street (our front doors are maybe 80 feet apart) pays 6.75%.
We both live in the same zip code. We both live within the same city. We both live in the same school district. We each live in two different counties.
(And up the road a bit, a third county is involved instead.)
It is my considered opinion that it is all quite resoundingly fucked.
But some cities have their own sales taxes in addition to (or instead of) county sales taxes, so county alone isn't good enough.
Besides, there's literally 30 different counties in the US named "Hancock".
(If this were an easy problem to solve it'd have been solved a long time ago.)
---
I think we're already back to where we started, wherein: In order to display an accurate sales tax, we need to know the address, city, and state of the buyer.
There's a very small % of traffic that actually uses VPNs
Remember, sales tax isn't something big like state-level. It's literally town-level, including tiny towns. Two sides of the same street can have a different sales tax.
Not to mention all the extra rules, such as individual clothing items under $110 being exempt in New York.
I appreciate this can be done and countries in Europe do it, I just don't see how this is any better at all than status quo:
* Current State: we all know the quoted price doesn't include sales tax, which will be added to make the final price in checkout after we enter our address.
* Final State: we all know the quoted price will likely change during checkout, when we see the final price after we enter our address.
So we make things more complicated for vendors, and we make it not just acceptable but required that vendors use our IP addresses for geolocation, only to give us a maybe-right-maybe-wrong final price. Does anyone feel scammed by not having tax included on the price in the listings of Macy's online store?
I'm not sure why one wouldn't want to know the real price before the checkout. It's a bit baffling to me. It could be a cultural thing as well, then I guess, there isn't really a right or wrong way of looking at it.
Because you'd never actually know if it's the final real price or not until you entered your address! That's the entire premise of my objection, was that not clear?
If we want to talk about displaying final price for my confirmed shipping address then yeah, I'm all in for that.
It's just that, in the list of things I'd like fixed about the world, that's about dead last.
When you're used to sales tax being added at the register, it's not an inconvenience. Who cares.
Sure, in a world where the actual sticker price is displayed. Do you believe this will remain true when customers have to add items to the cart to get the “real” price?
Finding out your teenage daughter is pregnant based on her shopping is easy. It’s actually harder not to notice. “Customers like you also bought” is an effective algorithm because people are mostly the same. Pregnancy has some very specific and unique needs which create a strong signal.
Nobody is in a shady back room poring over chat logs and GPS coordinates looking for pregnant teenagers. It just falls out of the sysem.
I can totally image a PM somewhere calculate the negative bps for this and call the experiment a failure!
Is North America unique in allowing local municipalities to set their own taxes?
> It's really not a crazy concept - estimate it based on geolocation and say "more exact will be available once you enter your address".
That’s exactly what happens now, except the advertised price is actually correct instead of an “estimate”. I have an intuitive sense for local tax. How can I know what method was used to compute this estimated price?
Anyways, all I was saying that it's a solved UX problem, and the reason why you're not getting full price is because A/B testing has shown that when customers see the complete price, they get a shock and less likely to buy the item. This doesn't have much to do with websites caring about some edge cases that they'll somehow won't be able to give out exact price to you. In the worst case, the shopping websites could ask you to enter your postal code and show all prices with the tax included price.
Municipal taxes are not an edgecase in the United States at least. They’re very much the norm, especially in telecommunications.
It's not that NA is the only one susceptible to A/B testing. It's more of a - it's-grey-area-to-illegal to not show full prices outside of NA.
> Because according to Japanese law, in most of the scenarios, the full price, to your best ability, has to be presented to the potential customer.
I agree, there are a lot of cases where they don't show the full prices. Especially in the recent years when they've been changing the consumption tax rapidly, and allowing shops to have some leeway. But online prices, almost everywhere, include tax. Even Shopify forces JP merchants to display them while selling in the area.
In terms of gaming, hmm… I guess, you could add wrong municipality’s taxes when you show the original price, and switch over at the checkout. But my assumption is that would be deemed illegal, as you are knowingly misleading the customer. Some in person stores still try a bit to mislead you by putting the full price in smaller font (like including the consumption tax), and exclude it over it in the bigger font. But I can still accept that, as I am informed about the full price somehow.
What is displayed for price before you put in postal code? What price do generic banner or TV ads display?
What you describe sounds like the same thing that happens in the US. So what's special about Australia, Japan, and Denmark as you stated earlier?
It actually happens in NA for specific industries as well! If you buy a flight from Google flights without making any additional purchases, you will get the sticker price because airfare display is regulated to a certain degree. Except in Japan and other countries, almost all display prices have to include local taxes. It’s a solved problem, but there’s no political appetite for it in US/Canada because it will hurt the sales.
Well, no, it isn’t. Consider the Oregon/Washington border. An IP could bounce around there. Oregon has zero sales tax so the pre-tax price is literally correct for Oregon residents. Adding estimated tax will be less accurate.
Similarly I could live in unincorporated King County such as White Center and not be subject to Seattle tax while still being subject to King County and Washington tax even though the other side of the street is Seattle.
There’s a sugary drink tax in Seattle. The border is Roxbury. There’s a 7/11 on Roxbury in White Center. Should a 7/11 sandwich board on the Seattle side of the street across from that 7/11 advertise the price with or without that tax?
This is at a merchant that, to say it lightly, has some prior knowledge of me and even has a drop-down menu to let me select the shipping destination out of my saved ones.
So far, that's only used for determining shipping times and availabilities – so why not also display amounts post-tax?
What about a grocery store on the Oregon/Idaho border? Idaho charges sales tax to residents but that can be waived with an Oregon ID. Should this be reflected in the advertised price?
And what about billboard or TV advertisements or even banner ads on a webpage?
I don't care, to be honest. If the merchant knows I can definitely get the cheaper rate without jumping through extra hoops, I don't see a problem in showing the lower price.
> What about a grocery store on the Oregon/Idaho border? Idaho charges sales tax to residents but that can be waived with an Oregon ID. Should this be reflected in the advertised price?
Wow, really? Fascinating/frustrating! There's always one more layer, I guess. Maybe... show two prices then? (I've seen this in duty free stores: Sometimes there's a "with international boarding pass only" price.)
> And what about billboard or TV advertisements or even banner ads on a webpage?
That seems like a case where I'd be fine with the net price being displayed. And yeah, I realize that then all other stores would be screaming unfair discrimination because people will compare the competition's flyer price to the in-store label price and everything...
Maybe the only solution really is to simplify the horror that is US sales tax, and that's obviously never happening. Think of all the jobs in tax preparation and software...
But that discount is contingent on what you might add to your cart in the future and the shipping options you choose. Items can have complex interactions when purchased together. This isn’t just tax. It’s shipping, discounts, gift wrap, and coupons. All of which are taxed and possibly at different rates. You have the luxury of not caring. The merchant doesn’t.
> Wow, really? Fascinating/frustrating!
That’s a tame example. If I buy a car in Oregon where there’s no sales tax I still might have to pay Washington use tax to get plates. This is still the case if I buy the car in Miami, or Toronto. So how does advertising work in that situation?
https://dor.wa.gov/forms-publications/publications-subject/t...
> Maybe the only solution really is to simplify the horror that is US sales tax, and that's obviously never happening. Think of all the jobs in tax preparation and software...
Our complex tax codes are not a conspiracy to create jobs in tax prep. The right to levy our own taxes was a primary motivation of the revolution. In our system of government power is decentralized. That means individual states, counties, and towns can charge their own taxes.
Say my city votes to provide free residential broadband to residents and fund it with a telco tax on private ISP service.
“Simplifying” the tax code by just not allowing the city to do that is literally antithetical to our society. It’s an undermining of the laboratory of democracy.
That may sound hyperbolic but “I find this complexity confusing” just isn’t a compelling argument for kneecapping our democracy.
Make everything as simple as possible but no simpler.
But that's already the case today. I see the price per item, not counting any potential bulk rebates or optional coupon codes, as it's not a priori clear what else I'll buy. On the other hand, sales tax can always be calculated per item sold, as far as I know.
> Say my city votes to provide free residential broadband to residents and fund it with a telco tax on private ISP service.
> “Simplifying” the tax code by just not allowing the city to do that is literally antithetical to our society. It’s an undermining of the laboratory of democracy.
That argument does make some sense to me, but there are many other types of taxes cities and states could levy other than sales tax, which is extraordinarily complicated as you've demonstrated.
> Our complex tax codes are not a conspiracy to create jobs in tax prep. [...] Make everything as simple as possible but no simpler.
I agree, but also given the incentives here, I'd be surprised if that industry wouldn't put up heavy opposition if anybody seriously campaigned to simplify sales tax while avoiding the reduced autonomy/decentralization you mention. I'm all for avoiding Chesterton's Fence, but taking that way of thinking too far can cement the status quo beyond what's useful and resonable in many cases.
That’s fair. I guess I just don’t see the value in displaying the per-item tax when there’s still a bunch of other unknowable charges. But I agree, as far as I understand it would be possible to show the per-item price with sales tax.
But my experience with tax is that it’s always more complicated than you expect, even when you think it’s more complicated than you expect.
You know where you live, you know what your local sales tax is. The current system works fine.
> You know where you live, you know what your local sales tax is.
No, I in fact don't know, because I have better things to do than to keep up with what my city and state have extended sales tax to this month, what carveouts exist ("no sales tax on unhealthy snacks except ice cream" and stuff like that) etc.
And there is absolutely no excuse for in-person stores that do, in fact, have perfect a priori knowledge of all of this.
By your logic I shouldn’t have to pay income tax on sales because my customers already paid income tax. We could simply the whole thing by just making dollar bills worth $0.66.
People often believe that because something has been for a while, it must always be so. Not too long ago we didn't have sales tax (introduced in the 1950's), and things were fine.
You are taxed on your income, and you are taxed on your expenses. If you invest that money or do anything productive with it, it gets taxed again. That's such a ridiculous idea - pick one and stick with it. Make it whatever percentage it needs to be, and that's it.
When someone looks at their bank account - that ought to be the final word on how much purchasing power that individual has. It shouldn't be handwavy minus 7-12%.
Mind you, that's 7-12% in addition to the 20-30% you already paid.
I’d love to abolish regressive sales taxes and return to 1950s level progressive income tax rates. You have my vote.
The idea of "Paying what you can afford" is BS everywhere it's been implemented - from school tuition to soccer camp to taxes. Everyone feels burned and like the "others" aren't paying what they should be.
Federal taxes should be a flat percentage, no deductions, no credits, no so-called "loop holes"... nothing. Every citizen pays the same percentage (whatever it needs to be).
The incumbent tax apparatus would never allow us to have something so simple, though.
For a nation that got it's start in no small part due to being over-taxed, it's very interesting to see just how much tax shenanigans we tolerate today.
> Progressive income tax is also silly. Just because you earn more money than someone else doesn't mean you derive more benefits from the government.
I think "pay what you can afford" is fair because the only way to make half a million dollars (or more) a year is to disproportionately reap the benefits of society. Marginal income tax is fair in the sense that everyone does pay the same. Your $11,001st dollar is taxed the same as everyone else, just like your $578,126th dollar. If you don't want to pay the highest rates then take advantage of deductions (aka incentives aka loopholes) and invest in creating jobs.
> Everyone feels burned and like the "others" aren't paying what they should be.
I definitely don't feel this way and I am happy to pay my marginal rates. I just don't think they go far enough.
> Federal taxes should be a flat percentage, no deductions, no credits, no so-called "loop holes"... nothing. Every citizen pays the same percentage (whatever it needs to be).
Do you propose a flat income tax or a flat wealth tax? Should capital gains be taxed as income?
> For a nation that got it's start in no small part due to being over-taxed, it's very interesting to see just how much tax shenanigans we tolerate today.
My understanding was that the issue was lack of representation or ability to levy local taxes but I admit my knowledge of that point in history is weak. The America of today is certainly different from revolutionary times. I would say it is better.
This is where we fundamentally disagree.
You buy products because you want/like them. The people who make them are not disproportionately reaping benefits of society - they are reaping benefits of creating productive and desirable products.
This view flirts with the idea that people "extract" wealth from the public, and that people are taken advantage of and/or manipulated into buying things.
> I definitely don't feel this way and I am happy to pay my marginal rates. I just don't think they go far enough.
People universally feel the government (local, state, federal) overwhelmingly wastes their tax money - yet so many people demand others pay more of their earned income to this uncaring ineffective machine. Tax receipts will never be enough for the government, and some people will continue to advocate plowing more of other people's money into the dark abyss. That's madness.
> Do you propose a flat income tax or a flat wealth tax? Should capital gains be taxed as income?
I propose a straight flat income tax percentage, without any deductions, credits, anything. While the percentage is fixed, the dollar amount obviously scales with income. Things like capital gains are solved this way by taxing the actual income you generated from the investments.
I'm making up numbers, but say it's 20%. No matter if you earned $1 of income, or $1,000,000 - you pay 20%.
A flat tax of 20% would be ruinous to the poor and lower middle class. That can’t be sustained without an enormous increase in income or some guarantees around living expenses.
If I understand your definition of flat tax then capital gains would be untaxed as well so the wealthiest would pay even less.
I understand the ideology. Taxes should be simple and equal. I just don’t think that ideology is worth defending. The price is too high when the benefits are so unclear.
This is a very problematic view of the world, and is not in line with reality.
The people who earn $10MM a year make decisions that impact the lives of thousands (10's of thousands, or 100's of thousands) of employees. They are usually also directly responsible for millions of dollars in salaries every month.
The myth that executives running a business don't earn their pay is silly.
> A flat tax of 20% would be ruinous to the poor and lower middle class.
Also not true even a little bit. Most of the lower and middle class already pay more than 20%.
But those decisions are worthless without people to carry them out.
> They are usually also directly responsible for millions of dollars in salaries every month.
So what? The salaries may add up to millions but what’s the denominator? This doesn’t justify a 100x multiplier on earnings.
> Also not true even a little bit. Most of the lower and middle class already pay more than 20%.
Are you including sales, property, and state income tax?
Median income in the US is $80,610.00. The effective federal income tax rate at that income level is 16.23% but that assumes no deductions. In reality the median earner is going to take the standard deduction for $13,850.00 so they’re only going to pay federal income tax on $66,760.00 so their effective rate is 15.04%. This doesn’t consider student loan payments, mortgage interest deductions, or retirement account contributions, which will further lower the effective rate.
This is for the median income. For lower incomes the effect is even more dramatic.
So the only way most of the lower and middle class pay more than 20% is if you count all taxes paid. But that means for your flat 20%-no-deductions tax to be a better deal it has to come with an abolition of all other taxes.
If so how do municipalities get funding? Does it all come from the federal government?
Ok...
> Federal taxes should be a flat percentage, no deductions, no credits, no so-called "loop holes"... nothing. Every citizen pays the same percentage (whatever it needs to be).
Flat percentage? A flat percentage means that if you earn N times what someone else earns you pay N times as much tax as they do.
But you just said a couple of paragraphs earlier that just because you earn more money that someone else doesn't mean you derive more benefits from the government. If that's going to be the basis of your tax policy shouldn't the tax be a flat amount?
Alice makes $10 million/year, so her tax is $1 million/year.
Bob makes $20 000/year, so his tax is $2 000/year.
Alice and Bob get the same benefits from the government so what is the justification for her tax being 500 times as much as Bob's?
I happen to think a flat percentage without deductions or credits is the best compromise with the people who think everyone else isn't paying their "fair share". If everyone pays this 10% (or whatever) then there's no quibbling about this or that deduction or tax shenanigan (buying art, etc).
The big argument for a progressive rate over a fixed rate is that 10% from someone making $15 000 has a much bigger impact on their lifestyle than 10% from someone making $15 000 000.
With no deductions and credits 10% on $15 000, especially for someone with kids, can mean the tax is coming from money that otherwise would have went toward basic things like food and heat and healthcare.
That's why nearly every serious flat rate tax proposal I've seen includes some kind of exemption so that tax is actually only on the income over that threshold. But once you do that it is now a progressive tax with two brackets.
That said, I DO agree that hidden facility/resort/etc. fees and the like should go. For years, there was a conference center restoration fee tacked onto hotels all over NYC even the project wasn't even approved. Rental cars at airports are also a nightmare. There is no reason for them.
Usually (across the world and across history) the power of taxation is very jealously guarded, and local government is usually only allowed to gather a limited range of taxes. Historically sovereigns have treated attempts by subordinates to raise their own taxes as tantamount to treason.
You haven't given any reason why not.
And sales tax is one of a limited range of taxes.
You guys can think of lots of reasons to justify why you can't do things like the rest of the civilized world does, be it prices and taxes, medical insurance or something else. The US is not some sprcial snowflake country.
In some areas, sales tax is actual multiple taxes from different overlapping jurisdictions: state, county, city, and sometimes special tax district. ZIP codes don't align with any of these, so you need to know exactly where the buyer is in order to properly calculate sales tax.
There are places where adjacent addresses in the same ZIP code have different sales tax rates.
There's probably a Things Developers Believe About ZIP Codes list out there somewhere.
It was never the norm that websites never asked for your shipping address or zipcode before allowing shopping. That's really silly.
But I guess that would outside FTC jurisdiction?
Most online shops have a good estimate of your location based on IP. And already use it to estimate shopping costs, right?
Mind you, I'm all for more up-front transparency in general, especially to the degree that comparison-shopping is inconsistent to the degree it displays or doesn't display often significant add-ons.
One for in-person shopping (like VAT) -- you pay the tax according to local rates, but it's factored in already.
one for online shopping, ("E-VAT") -- you pay a national rate tax and the seller is responsible for paying gross sales based on that percentage to the state and the rest goes to the IRS.
Problem comes with the Sin Taxes that have been established. For instance, in Seattle, sugared drinks MAY incur a tax depending on what kind of store you bought it from (e.g. the normal costco has to tax it but the business costco doesn't), but that doesn't affect some folks and then there's tax-exempt organizations like churches that can have their sales tax waived and then there's states where sales taxes are a majority of the income is from sales tax but only if you're local and
oh god it gets bad.
Good for me, my zipcode is the Walmart of zip codes. No so good for people who's zip code is the Whole Foods of zip codes.
Not really, no.
Zip codes also aren't great either. A single zip code can cover many different tax jurisdictions, even different states.
Or better yet, give municipalities an incentive to stop layering a kinds of taxes. Just have a VAT and be done with it.
I bet that's wrong, and that a huge chunk of shopping is from cell phones that usually have an effectively random IP when they're not at their home location.
Switching our tax regime to VATs, effectively flattening 13,000+ sales tax jurisdictions down to 50, would be a monumental undertaking involving rethinking and reorganizing financing of literally everything below the federal level. And in the end it would solve a problem that is at best a minor annoyance to most Americans.
The juice ain't worth the squeeze.
Everyone is an edge case in some form. You, included.
Just have a VAT and be done with it.
This just illustrates that you don't understand the that taxes have multiple purposes, and why taxes are the way they are. Attend a few city council meetings.
That seems like terrible advice. Oh, the price is $X. And once you've entered all your info "just kidding." I'd much rather know there are some things not included up-front if they're not reasonably factored in.
Meanwhile, 99% of people will see the price they can expect to pay.
God I wish this applied to buying cars as well
“Oh, sorry, looks like we’d already applied the undercoat to your car.”
“Ah, thanks!”
“That’s an extra $400 charge.”
“I’m not paying for it. I didn’t want it. You can have it back if you want.”
This is not as much of an upper hand as you think it is, often these shenanigans happen after sitting at the dealer for a couple hours while they do whatever it is they do. Do you value your time so little that you'll just walk out of a transaction over less than a 1% difference in cost?
The dealer knows how to play this game way better than you, if you walk into a dealership without having a plan to score a deal then you already lost
And also-freaking-lutely would I walk instead of eating a BS charge. Sometimes it really is the principle of the thing. My principle is I’m not paying a penny for something I didn’t ask for. A dealership I’d be caught dead doing business with will eat the bogus charges instead of losing a customer forever. Conversely, next time I need a Toyota, I have the business card of the guy I’ll buy it from and he doesn’t even know it yet. He treated me well last time and his investment in that deal will keep paying him back.
> rings up as $121.41
> "Wow, I wasn't *highly aware* that the sales tax rate here where I live was 7.83%, thanks for helping me out by putting the wrong price on the sticker, shopkeep. Now I can calculate the actual price of things in your store, something I couldn't do before – I'll simply multiply every sticker price by 1.0783 in my head on the fly. What a great 'upside'!"
Until then, all you can do is quote a price.
Welcome to reality, kid.
If you're buying it for resale, you don't owe tax. How do you put that on a price tag?
There's use tax. Depending on what you use a product you buy for, you might owe a different tax rate. How do you get a final price out of that?
You don't. When you quote a price, it's a quote.
Network access fee: $2.65
Municipal upgrade fee: $16.30
Fees end up costing nearly 80% of the entire bill. There are no taxes or gov surcharges of any kind.
*(with autopay discount)
**(with autopay direct deposit discount)
***(will not be reflected on first 3 bills)
ETA: here's their current promotion: https://i.imgur.com/TfwsdQv.png $20 for service, $20.49 in fees! fees are 102% of the supposed price!
It still seems kind of new and I can't find one for Spectrum (my ISP) or I'd share it here myself, but: I pay exactly $59.95 per month, as the service is advertised in my area, and that's that. There are no itemized fees/taxes on my bill.
I don't remember the last time I had an ISP with weird fees associated with it -- it seems like it has had to have been around a decade now, at least.
(Cellular, too: My cheapskate all-you-can-eat cellular service costs me $35 per month, flat -- to the penny.)
Like FTC, I estimate that banning these would save U.S. consumers millions of hours they currently spend searching and clicking on pointless coupons on their phones before making purchases. It would also increase happiness, as it's extremely annoying to pay $20 extra, knowing that a lower price is available if only you spent ten minutes struggling with a store's website on your phone.
Whoever invented this is evil and is destroying happiness.
Which store is that with the yellow price tags?
You have to log in with an account and “clip” the imaginary coupons in their app for the price to apply when you scan your card
because how are you ever going to stay in business doing something as niche as selling groceries without leaning hard into surveillance capitalism
Even if they throw her out it won’t change what she’s done: she put fear in the bellies of some truly terrible people who had almost forgot what the word “restraint” means.
Ms Khan, I salute you.
No, the investor class will arrive at the negotiating table one way or another on a long enough timeline. It will be up to them if they still have legs to walk on.
The really scary fascists aren’t stupid: Thiel and those guys are buying bunkers in New Zealand as fast as the checks clear. They understand something that the American public lost sight of for a moment: the American Public is terrifying, the American public is slow to wake but arbitrarily brutal once roused. Pushing the American public into a corner has been the last mistake of a great many men better than Elon Musk.
I’m not sure even they realize how dangerous they’ve become.
I’m sorry: we’re past the point where you can normalize Thiel world and not be a menace. I like both of those guys in general, I hope they have the moral courage to take a stand against the really scary shit.
But until they’ll flat renounce this psycho aspiring despot shit they’re net negative.
> Four of the FTC’s five commissioners voted to approve the rule. Commissioner Andrew Ferguson, – who is President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to replace Khan, was the one dissenting vote.
https://apnews.com/article/ftc-junk-fees-rule-hotels-tickets...
Edit: The full decent reads like choosing fealty to Trump over good rule making. https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/ferguson-junk-f...
The fact that they're so often unenforceable is probably a decent argument that they're an irrelevant complication of labor interactions that we don't need anyways. They only ever made sense with executives and those folks usually have large sums of money attached to their compliance.
But, yeah, as a generic thing below the level of a CEO becoming the CEO of a direct competitor (in which case lawyers have presumably put specific contracts in place if they're competent), they don't make a lot of sense beyond NDAs in play. No properly-managed company was ever going to pay me a bunch of money to not work at a random company in the industry who was probably a partner anyway.
But I'm also baffled... how did this take this long?
Why wasn't it done way back when they did it for airline tickets, in 2012?
It passed 384 to 25 suggesting there is pretty good bipartisan support for ending such fees at least for hotels. Here was the vote breakdown:
Yeas Nays Not Voting
Republican 180 25 12
Democrat 204 0 9
Total. 284 25 21
But as far as under this administration, it seems like it took half the term to right the ship and get the leadership moving in the right direction. I think a second term would have been impressive.
One is a thing 100% under control of the business trying to sell me a thing, the other 0%. Why should anybody get to scalp me and legally be able to blame it on the state/city government?
I remember an episode of the TV show Happy Days when the restaurant owner started charging money to use the toilet stall. It was a sad joke and many businesses are following suit.
Wait staff reading this: bosses at restaurants like this are stealing from you if that doesn’t go straight to you. I tip very well, but I’m not tipping twice. And yes, if it’s a “service charge”, that’s the same as saying “tip” from the customer’s perspective.
Wondering, is there already US places that works without tips like in most other places ? (Owner pays a decent salary to its employees, include that in all products they sell and don’t expect tips)
At the higher end, the labor market for waitstaff is competitive, and restaurant operators who have experimented with this have had trouble keeping server positions filled (with the opposite effect in the kitchen).
tip: 20%
tax: 8.625%
= total: 34.625%
edit: The best part is, if your employees don't use the money (maybe they don't know about it or don't have any health care expenses), the business can eventually reclaim it...
The restaurant association balked at this, and encouraged businesses to list out the increased cost as a separate line item on the receipt, instead of raising menu prices, basically raising a middle finger and saying "see what you idiots voted for, now you pay for it!" I don't know why I'd be mad that I have to pay for someone's health care. That's sort of how it works, doesn't it?
Since then, it has taken on a life of its own. Some places call it a health care surcharge. Others call it a SF surcharge, or a cost adjustment, or inflation fee. It's not a tax, it's not a service charge, it's not anything but whatever arbitrary number the business wants to charge without raising their menu price. And thus, it's taxable.
Online retailers would presumably still be able to show pricing before knowing a shipping address, so their pricing would be pre-tax. That would make the apparent price differential even greater, and on every item.
I think this would make the marketplace less clear for consumers.
So if they are logged in with an address on file, it could be that. If not, they could use geolocation, with a note that the tax is estimated. And let the user input a location in a box to show the exact tax.
So we'd go from the current regime where the displayed price is wrong to another regime where the displayed price is wrong? Allegedly, something like 40%+ of Americans use VPNs. They would pretty much always see the wrong price.
In practice, the ramification of this would be that your local indie retailers (where we are much less likely to be persistently logged in) would be forced to incorrectly show higher prices to a set of people, while the giant retailers who already have your billing info can show you 100% accurate pricing all the time, regardless of VPN.
I don't see any clear wins in that scenario.
Maybe you're just less intelligent than the average consumer and need some more protection? Or is it something else?
I'm not one to police tone, but really? Did it make you feel better to say that?
> is it something else?
Yes, the something else is that you're missing the point that my comment was specifically about the disparity in the prices large online retailers would be able to display (e.g. without sales tax) versus what offline retailers would display (with sales tax).
If Amazon and a local retailer are both aiming for the same $1,000 for an item net of tax, this would mean that Amazon could display $1,000 as the price while my local retailer would have to list it for (say) $1,100. I don't think local retailers would like that very much, even though the consumer would end up paying $1,100 either way. You may disagree.
It is worse for online where until you log in they have no clue what taxes will apply. If you are buying a gift for someone in a different area I don't know what tax rules apply but there is good odds they won't know until you get to the shipping information what the real taxes are.
The legislation in most of europe clearly handles this - the price displayed is for the intended customer. If you go into B&Q (home depot equivalent), you'll see prices including sales tax. If you go next door to a timber merchant none of the prices have sales tax included. If you're a business, you don't pay the sales tax. The businesses know what their taxes are, and are required to have accurate accounts anyway. For those that are maybe numerically challenged - they'll never pay more than they see on the sticker.
> It is worse for online where until you log in they have no clue what taxes will apply.
Enter your shipping address to see pricing. Exactly the same as it is now. Give an estimate based on IP. Exactly how it works in Europe, which has the same problem.
And if you can do that, then you might as well print it on the price tag (along with pre-tax price if you want). No buts.
Ditto for online, after you get the customer's ZIP code.
They literally can't know the price until you tell them whether you'd like a fork with it.
Now, this restaurant works around it by having both prices listed, but I can imagine a million freaking variants of that for an online sale: "you have to pay our local taxes, but almost maybe yours, unless you check out on a Sunday between noon and 5PM, which is a tax holiday on your block (but not your neighbors' across the road), so understand that the price may change between when you add it to your cart and when you click the 'pay' button."
I'm only a little bit exaggerating.
Fun fact: sales tax rates are not stable. Our state publishes quarterly tax changes at the county level; city-level changes are presumably too numerous for the state to publish in the same format.
Inclusive pricing can obviously be done in-store, but it also more or less ensures that some of the items in your store will have incorrect prices some of the time.
I think you have to look at it wholistically:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Median_h...
I guess the english language lets this stuff happen a lot, but not alot. I definitely did it by accident (not "on accident"!)
Luckily some states (OR, AK, others) don't have a sales tax.
I wonder what these people expect to get when they shill for corporations to whom they are nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Americans keep voting for rich assholes who oppress them while telling them they are giving them freedom.
Hidden fees create market inequities.
Sounds like that's what will be happening if the rule sticks.
No checked luggage, probably only a small cabin bag that fitted under the seat in front, no priority boarding, no seat selection.
It's a budget service, but the advertised prices aren't deceptive.
