In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
On August 08 2017 02:53 TheYango wrote: My understanding of xDaunt's point thus far is that "arbitration as an option" leads to arbitration being underutilized in practice due to the inherent conflict of interest for a plaintiff's trial lawyers (since they make more $$$ if the case goes to trial). Forced arbitration is therefore a net gain via removing the option for bad faith-decisions made by trial lawyers for their own personal gain.
I'm not knowledgeable enough on the subject in question to assess the truthfulness of the claims made, but from an outside perspective, forced arbitration doesn't seem like solution to this problem. But it is *a* solution.
My argument is that forced arbitration is not necessarily a bad thing, and for most claimants, it is likely a better way of resolving their claims. Thus, most criticisms of these types of clauses are misplaced.
And just to clarify a tangential point: Plaintiffs trial attorneys actually make more money (on a recovery versus time spent basis) when they settle their claims without resorting to litigation. And if they do file suit, they generally make more money settling before trial. This is a function of the cost curve of litigation and the fact that plaintiff's attorney almost always work on a contingency fee (they're paid a percentage of a recovery as opposed to an hourly rate).
Haven't caught up in the past couple of pages, but I recently stumbled upon this documentary: HyperNormalisation by Adam Curtis from BBC. Has anybody watched it, and is it worth it? I've seen pretty good reviews online, but I want some closer to home reviews.
You've heard that American agriculture loves trade. And it's easy to see why: Under NAFTA, American farmers have quadrupled their exports to Canada and Mexico and the two nations rank second and third, after China, as markets for U.S. farm goods.
"American agriculture is virtually always a winner when trade agreements remove barriers to U.S. crops and livestock exports," says Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, the largest farmers organization in the nation.
But despite the largely pro-trade drumbeat in the ag sector, there are plenty of farmers who feel otherwise. From tomato growers in Florida to cattle ranchers in Montana, some farmers bruised by NAFTA think it has favored agribusiness over small-scale farms, lowered environmental standards and made it harder to compete against cheaper imports.
Now that the White House is scheduled to revise the treaty in talks slated to start on Aug. 16, the question for many of these disgruntled farmers is whether Trump will remember them at the negotiating table.
"Right from the beginning in 1994, NAFTA opened up [the market] for Canadian ranchers to send their cattle directly into the U.S.," recalls Gilles Stockton, a sheep and cattle rancher in central Montana. Canadian cattle were exported to be slaughtered and sold in the American market, increasing competition for U.S. ranchers.
When a cow in the U.S. tested positive for mad cow disease in 2003, Japan, China, South Korea and Mexico closed their borders to American beef. But this galled Stockton because the animal originally came from Canada — as a NAFTA import. Congress then tried to bolster the nation's small ranchers by passing the Country-of-Origin Law (COOL), which required disclosing where meat came from, but was forced to repeal it in 2015 after the World Trade Organization deemed it a trade barrier.
"The cattle industry has seen all the detrimental effects that can come from NAFTA," Stockton says. He feels the trade act "limits our sovereignty to run our affairs as we see fit. It made us share adverse diseases with other countries. It increased imports, decreasing domestic prices. And it fed into the monopolization of the industry on a global level."
Free-trade proponents argue there are always winners and losers in globalization, but overall, gains outweigh losses. Farmers may see more competition, but consumers get lower food prices. That "everyone's better off" argument, though, rang hollow among Rust Belt workers left behind in globalization — and in rural areas, even as farm exports took off. Their discontent – fed by Donald Trump's promises to rip up NAFTA, calling it the "worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere" – helped land him in the White House.
Just 14 miles from Canada, durum wheat farmer Lynn Brodal and his neighboring farmers in Burke County, N.D., have more than once driven their tractors to the border to block Canadian trucks coming into the country. Under NAFTA, he should be able to sell his harvest into Saskatchewan. But according to Brodal, Canada has made it all but impossible for American durum wheat growers to enter the northern market by using artificial trade barriers like complicated paperwork and exaggerated complaints about weeds in American grain.
"I can't find a single [Canadian] grain elevator that will take our [durum wheat]," Brodal says, even as Canadian durum continues to enter the United States. He wants to see NAFTA renegotiated to better protect farmers like him, making it harder for U.S. trading partners to undermine its provisions.
For produce farmers in Florida the stakes in a NAFTA renegotiation are even higher, as winter-grown fruits and vegetables from Mexico stream north. Florida growers have, for example, cut the number of acres they have planted in tomatoes by 25 percent under NAFTA, even as Mexico has upped its production by 230 percent.
Speaking at a U.S. Trade Representatives' hearing in July, Kenneth Parker, executive director of the Florida Strawberry Grower Association, said the four-fold rise in strawberry imports from Mexico "present[s] a clear and present danger" to the U.S. industry.
Dena Hoff, a grain and livestock farmer in eastern Montana and a co-regional coordinator of the farmer-rights group La Via Campesina, considers NAFTA a broken promise.
"NAFTA was going to be so wonderful for American agriculture. Everyone was going to make money, because there were going to be all these exports," says Hoff. "We were going to open the border [to trade]; the environmental standards in Mexico were going to rise; there was going to be prosperity for all three countries. But of course the opposite happened."
Whether or not it was the primary culprit, NAFTA certainly hasn't altered the steady rise in farm concentration. Trade expanded the total size of the pie, as the Farm Bureau points out: U.S. agricultural exports to Mexico and Canada jumped from $8.9 billion in 1993 to over $38 billion today. Yet, critics point out, the largest farms control most of the slices, with 20 percent of farms operating 70 percent of U.S. farmland. Between 2013-2016, 42,000 farms ceased operations, according to USDA data.
The National Farmers Union, the second-largest farmers organization, highlights this disparity. "The net effect of trade agreements like NAFTA is to put more power, more authority with the large multinational companies and by extension, take that power away from family farmers," says Farmers Union President Roger Johnson.
The world's major meat packers, Johnson pointed out, operate cross-border in Canada, U.S. and Mexico, taking production wherever costs are the lowest – which is precisely the criticism Trump has made of companies moving American jobs to Mexico. In a similar example, some of the tomato and berry imports Florida growers complain about are actually produced by U.S. companies operating in Mexico.
On August 08 2017 02:53 TheYango wrote: My understanding of xDaunt's point thus far is that "arbitration as an option" leads to arbitration being underutilized in practice due to the inherent conflict of interest for a plaintiff's trial lawyers (since they make more $$$ if the case goes to trial). Forced arbitration is therefore a net gain via removing the option for bad faith-decisions made by trial lawyers for their own personal gain.
I'm not knowledgeable enough on the subject in question to assess the truthfulness of the claims made, but from an outside perspective, forced arbitration doesn't seem like solution to this problem. But it is *a* solution.
My argument is that forced arbitration is not necessarily a bad thing, and for most claimants, it is likely a better way of resolving their claims. Thus, most criticisms of these types of clauses are misplaced.
I'm still just not getting it. I'm fine with the concept that arbitration is a better way of resolving claims. Where you lose me is why that means it should be forced upon people. Especially coming from a conservative who normally lean towards "I don't need the big government telling me how much lead paint to lick off the walls".
Are you going with "most people aren't harmed by stripping away their legal right to a trial so it's not a big deal"? Because otherwise I just don't see the link between "arbitration is often a good choice" and "people shouldn't have the right to go to trial".
President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club needs to hire 35 waiters for this winter’s social season in Palm Beach, Fla.
Late last month, the club placed an ad on page C8 of the Palm Beach Post, crammed full of tiny print laying out the job experience requirements in classified ad shorthand. “3 mos recent & verifiable exp in fine dining/country club,” the ad said. “No tips.”
The ad gave no email address or phone number. “Apply by fax,” it said. The ad also provided a mailing address. It ran twice, then never again.
This was an underwhelming way to attract local job-seekers. But that wasn’t the point. The ads were actually part of Mar-a-Lago’s efforts to hire foreign workers for those 35 jobs.
About a week before the ads ran, the president’s club asked the Labor Department for permission to hire 70 temporary workers from overseas, government records show. Beside the 35 waiters, it asked for 20 cooks and 15 housekeepers, slightly more than it hired last year.
On August 08 2017 02:43 Dangermousecatdog wrote: Right back at you.
Well, let me help you. At best, your argument is an exercise in semantics in which you have demonstrated an inability to properly follow the conversation by conflating my discussions of arbitration generally with an argument that forced arbitration still presents a "choice" for claimants. That's not looking particularly profound to me.
Please spare the thread an attempt at summarizing my argument.
I am not sure why you think that arguing that a simple and plain point is semantics is exactly as profound as you think it is. I am also not sure why you are so proud of an inability to understand that forcing arbritation is not the same as an alternative, assuming that you have a certain level of intelligence and will to understand.
You've heard that American agriculture loves trade. And it's easy to see why: Under NAFTA, American farmers have quadrupled their exports to Canada and Mexico and the two nations rank second and third, after China, as markets for U.S. farm goods.
"American agriculture is virtually always a winner when trade agreements remove barriers to U.S. crops and livestock exports," says Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, the largest farmers organization in the nation.
But despite the largely pro-trade drumbeat in the ag sector, there are plenty of farmers who feel otherwise. From tomato growers in Florida to cattle ranchers in Montana, some farmers bruised by NAFTA think it has favored agribusiness over small-scale farms, lowered environmental standards and made it harder to compete against cheaper imports.
Now that the White House is scheduled to revise the treaty in talks slated to start on Aug. 16, the question for many of these disgruntled farmers is whether Trump will remember them at the negotiating table.
"Right from the beginning in 1994, NAFTA opened up [the market] for Canadian ranchers to send their cattle directly into the U.S.," recalls Gilles Stockton, a sheep and cattle rancher in central Montana. Canadian cattle were exported to be slaughtered and sold in the American market, increasing competition for U.S. ranchers.
When a cow in the U.S. tested positive for mad cow disease in 2003, Japan, China, South Korea and Mexico closed their borders to American beef. But this galled Stockton because the animal originally came from Canada — as a NAFTA import. Congress then tried to bolster the nation's small ranchers by passing the Country-of-Origin Law (COOL), which required disclosing where meat came from, but was forced to repeal it in 2015 after the World Trade Organization deemed it a trade barrier.
"The cattle industry has seen all the detrimental effects that can come from NAFTA," Stockton says. He feels the trade act "limits our sovereignty to run our affairs as we see fit. It made us share adverse diseases with other countries. It increased imports, decreasing domestic prices. And it fed into the monopolization of the industry on a global level."
Free-trade proponents argue there are always winners and losers in globalization, but overall, gains outweigh losses. Farmers may see more competition, but consumers get lower food prices. That "everyone's better off" argument, though, rang hollow among Rust Belt workers left behind in globalization — and in rural areas, even as farm exports took off. Their discontent – fed by Donald Trump's promises to rip up NAFTA, calling it the "worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere" – helped land him in the White House.
Just 14 miles from Canada, durum wheat farmer Lynn Brodal and his neighboring farmers in Burke County, N.D., have more than once driven their tractors to the border to block Canadian trucks coming into the country. Under NAFTA, he should be able to sell his harvest into Saskatchewan. But according to Brodal, Canada has made it all but impossible for American durum wheat growers to enter the northern market by using artificial trade barriers like complicated paperwork and exaggerated complaints about weeds in American grain.
"I can't find a single [Canadian] grain elevator that will take our [durum wheat]," Brodal says, even as Canadian durum continues to enter the United States. He wants to see NAFTA renegotiated to better protect farmers like him, making it harder for U.S. trading partners to undermine its provisions.
For produce farmers in Florida the stakes in a NAFTA renegotiation are even higher, as winter-grown fruits and vegetables from Mexico stream north. Florida growers have, for example, cut the number of acres they have planted in tomatoes by 25 percent under NAFTA, even as Mexico has upped its production by 230 percent.
Speaking at a U.S. Trade Representatives' hearing in July, Kenneth Parker, executive director of the Florida Strawberry Grower Association, said the four-fold rise in strawberry imports from Mexico "present[s] a clear and present danger" to the U.S. industry.
Dena Hoff, a grain and livestock farmer in eastern Montana and a co-regional coordinator of the farmer-rights group La Via Campesina, considers NAFTA a broken promise.
"NAFTA was going to be so wonderful for American agriculture. Everyone was going to make money, because there were going to be all these exports," says Hoff. "We were going to open the border [to trade]; the environmental standards in Mexico were going to rise; there was going to be prosperity for all three countries. But of course the opposite happened."
Whether or not it was the primary culprit, NAFTA certainly hasn't altered the steady rise in farm concentration. Trade expanded the total size of the pie, as the Farm Bureau points out: U.S. agricultural exports to Mexico and Canada jumped from $8.9 billion in 1993 to over $38 billion today. Yet, critics point out, the largest farms control most of the slices, with 20 percent of farms operating 70 percent of U.S. farmland. Between 2013-2016, 42,000 farms ceased operations, according to USDA data.
The National Farmers Union, the second-largest farmers organization, highlights this disparity. "The net effect of trade agreements like NAFTA is to put more power, more authority with the large multinational companies and by extension, take that power away from family farmers," says Farmers Union President Roger Johnson.
The world's major meat packers, Johnson pointed out, operate cross-border in Canada, U.S. and Mexico, taking production wherever costs are the lowest – which is precisely the criticism Trump has made of companies moving American jobs to Mexico. In a similar example, some of the tomato and berry imports Florida growers complain about are actually produced by U.S. companies operating in Mexico.
I work in the tech side of Farm Credit, and internally we don't often hear this side of things. We don't work directly with the farmer borrower, but service several of their lending institutions around the country. I'm not exactly sure how those institutions view NAFTA at the moment, but I do know they heavily stress small farmer relationships.
On August 08 2017 03:15 ShoCkeyy wrote: Haven't caught up in the past couple of pages, but I recently stumbled upon this documentary: HyperNormalisation by Adam Curtis from BBC. Has anybody watched it, and is it worth it? I've seen pretty good reviews online, but I want some closer to home reviews.
On a June morning, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis and his wife enjoyed croissants in the lounge of the opulent hotel, a day before joining President Trump a few blocks away at the White House for a Rose Garden news conference.
Downstairs that same day in the grand ballroom, hundreds of bankers discussed their industry’s future under Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who lived in the hotel for six months at his own expense, according to a spokesman, after Trump picked him for the job.
The scenes illustrate a daily spectacle of Washington influence at 1100 Pennsylvania Ave., the city’s newest luxury hotel that has quickly become a kind of White House annex. Since Trump’s election, the Trump International Hotel has emerged as a Republican Party power center where on a good day — such as July 28 around 8 p.m. — excited visitors can watch the president share intimate dinner conversation with his just-named chief of staff, John F. Kelly, and be the first to brag about it on social media.
This is nothing Washington has ever seen. For the first time in presidential history, a profit-making venture touts the name of a U.S. president in its gold signage. And every cup of coffee served, every fundraiser scheduled, every filet mignon ordered feeds the revenue of the Trump family’s private business.
On August 08 2017 02:53 TheYango wrote: My understanding of xDaunt's point thus far is that "arbitration as an option" leads to arbitration being underutilized in practice due to the inherent conflict of interest for a plaintiff's trial lawyers (since they make more $$$ if the case goes to trial). Forced arbitration is therefore a net gain via removing the option for bad faith-decisions made by trial lawyers for their own personal gain.
I'm not knowledgeable enough on the subject in question to assess the truthfulness of the claims made, but from an outside perspective, forced arbitration doesn't seem like solution to this problem. But it is *a* solution.
My argument is that forced arbitration is not necessarily a bad thing, and for most claimants, it is likely a better way of resolving their claims. Thus, most criticisms of these types of clauses are misplaced.
I'm still just not getting it. I'm fine with the concept that arbitration is a better way of resolving claims. Where you lose me is why that means it should be forced upon people. Especially coming from a conservative who normally lean towards "I don't need the big government telling me how much lead paint to lick off the walls".
Are you going with "most people aren't harmed by stripping away their legal right to a trial so it's not a big deal"? Because otherwise I just don't see the link between "arbitration is often a good choice" and "people shouldn't have the right to go to trial".
Several people (including me) asked this question in one form or another. I think the only one he answered was this:
No, this is an overly simplistic and incorrect way of looking at the issue. Yes, arbitration clauses prevent class actions (which I already said). What's omitted from the analysis is what arbitration does in terms of cheapening access to justice for plaintiffs. Take it from someone who routinely represents personal injury plaintiffs: the formalities of modern civil litigation -- especially in professional malpractice cases (like the nursing home cases at issue here) -- are incredibly overbearing. Any case with a value that is under $50,000 in value is cost prohibitive to litigate through trial. Frankly, I think it is foolish to litigate cases with a value of under $100,000. For professional malpractice cases (like nursing home cases), you generally should be over $200,000 given the additional standard of care expert costs. Arbitration allows the parties to closely tailor the proceedings to the need of the case by many of the formalities of civil court, thereby reducing the cost of litigation, and expanding plaintiffs' access to justice and relief for claims. Given that the vast majority of claims are not resolved in class action lawsuits, these are good tradeoffs for most plaintiffs.
but if arbitration is truly the best idea in some cases wont those cases already go to arbitration? Can you think of times that the big guy (nursing homes/banks/ I am generalizing here) have wanted arbitration where the plaintiff did not that was actually a good idea for the plaintiff?
Well, here's the rub: if there's no arbitration agreement between the parties, there's an added burden in negotiating the parameters of the arbitration. Throw this burden on top of the overall lack of creativity of trial attorneys and their desire to justify their existence to their clients, and you can get a sense for why there's so much inertia in the way of the development of alternatives to civil litigation.
If I understand correctly, it's somewhere between "arbitration is often cheaper and better but people often don't do it unless you force them" and "arbitration is cheaper if you agree to it contractually before the claim occurs, otherwise you have to negotiate the terms and that's hard so people often just go to trial."
I'm not saying that's a good reason to force arbitration (and apparently xDaunt isn't necessarily pro-forced arbitration either) but I think that's the idea.
On August 08 2017 02:53 TheYango wrote: My understanding of xDaunt's point thus far is that "arbitration as an option" leads to arbitration being underutilized in practice due to the inherent conflict of interest for a plaintiff's trial lawyers (since they make more $$$ if the case goes to trial). Forced arbitration is therefore a net gain via removing the option for bad faith-decisions made by trial lawyers for their own personal gain.
I'm not knowledgeable enough on the subject in question to assess the truthfulness of the claims made, but from an outside perspective, forced arbitration doesn't seem like solution to this problem. But it is *a* solution.
My argument is that forced arbitration is not necessarily a bad thing, and for most claimants, it is likely a better way of resolving their claims. Thus, most criticisms of these types of clauses are misplaced.
I'm still just not getting it. I'm fine with the concept that arbitration is a better way of resolving claims. Where you lose me is why that means it should be forced upon people. Especially coming from a conservative who normally lean towards "I don't need the big government telling me how much lead paint to lick off the walls".
Are you going with "most people aren't harmed by stripping away their legal right to a trial so it's not a big deal"? Because otherwise I just don't see the link between "arbitration is often a good choice" and "people shouldn't have the right to go to trial".
First, this is not a situation where government is forcing arbitration upon people. This is a situation where the government is removing rules that would prevent nursing homes from inserting arbitration clauses into their resident agreements. The conservative answer (such as it is) to the claimant's concern about giving up the right to a jury trial is that the claimant is free to use a nursing home that does not insert arbitration clauses into their resident agreements.
Second, and as I have discussed above, the effect of giving up the right to a jury trial is not really a big deal, and if anything, it is beneficial to most types of claimants.
EAGLE GROVE, Iowa—On a cloud-swept landscape dotted with grain elevators, a meat producer called Prestage Farms is building a 700,000-square-foot processing plant. The gleaming new factory is both the great hope of Wright County, which voted by a 2-1 margin for Donald Trump, and the victim of one of Trump’s first policy moves, his decision to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
For much of industrial America, the TPP was a suspect deal, the successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which some argue led to a massive offshoring of U.S. jobs to Mexico. But for the already struggling agricultural sector, the sprawling 12-nation TPP, covering 40 percent of the world’s economy, was a lifeline. It was a chance to erase punishing tariffs that restricted the United States—the onetime “breadbasket of the world”—from selling its meats, grains and dairy products to massive importers of foodstuffs such as Japan and Vietnam.
The decision to pull out of the trade deal has become a double hit on places like Eagle Grove. The promised bump of $10 billion in agricultural output over 15 years, based on estimates by the U.S. International Trade Commission, won’t materialize. But Trump’s decision to withdraw from the pact also cleared the way for rival exporters such as Australia, New Zealand and the European Union to negotiate even lower tariffs with importing nations, creating potentially greater competitive advantages over U.S. exports.
A POLITICO analysis found that the 11 other TPP countries are now involved in a whopping 27 separate trade negotiations with each other, other major trading powers in the region like China and massive blocs like the EU. Those efforts range from exploratory conversations to deals already signed and awaiting ratification. Seven of the most significant deals for U.S. farmers were either launched or concluded in the five months since the United States withdrew from the TPP.
“I’m scared to death,” said Ron Prestage, whose North Carolina-based family pork and poultry business made its huge investment in the plant near Eagle Grove in part to reap expected gains from the TPP. “I don’t guess I’ve gone beyond the point of no return on the new plant, but we did already start digging our wells and started moving dirt.”
He and other agricultural businesspeople and workers have reason for concern.
On July 6, the EU, which already exports as much pork to Japan as the United States does, announced political agreement on a new deal that would give European pork farmers an advantage of up to $2 per pound over U.S. exporters under certain circumstances—a move which, if unchecked, is all but certain to create a widening gap between EU exports and those from the United States.
European wine producers, who sold more than $1 billion to Japan between 2014 and 2016, would also see a 15 percent tariff on exports to Japan disappear while U.S. exporters would continue to face that duty at the border. For other products, the deal essentially mirrors the rates negotiated under the TPP, which the United States has surrendered, giving the EU a clear advantage over U.S. farmers.
The EU’s deal is all the more noteworthy because American farmers were relying on the TPP—to which the EU was not a member—to give them an advantage over European competitors. But in a further rebuke to the United States, Tokyo decided within a matter of weeks to offer the European nations virtually the same agricultural access to its market that United States trade officials had spent two excruciating years extracting through near-monthly meetings with their Japanese counterparts on the sidelines of the broader TPP negotiations; the United States is now left out.
The EU, which also recently inked a deal with Vietnam, is now moving forward with talks with Malaysia and is in the process of modernizing a pre-existing trade deal with Mexico.
Meanwhile, a bloc of four Latin-American countries—Mexico, Peru, Chile and Colombia, known as the Pacific Alliance—is quickly becoming the leading force for free trade in the region, announcing near the end of June it would commence its own negotiations with New Zealand, Australia and Singapore, heedless of its neighbor to the north.
On its own, Australia, which in 2015 cut a deal to undersell the United States in beef exports to Japan, announced another round of scheduled tariff cuts with Japan. Without the TPP, Australian ranchers eventually will enjoy a 19 percent tariff advantage over U.S. competitors. Australia is also prioritizing the conclusion of trade talks with Indonesia, the largest nation in Southeast Asia by gross domestic product.
The remaining 11 TPP countries have already met two times, with a third meeting planned, to move ahead with the revival of the deal without the United States. The so-called TPP-11 would be in direct response to Trump’s trade policy. Economic forecasts already show projected gains for countries involved. Canada, according to one estimate, could permanently gain an annual market share of $412 million in beef and $111 million in pork sales to Japan by 2035, because lower tariffs would enable it to eclipse America’s position in the market.
As China, which was never a part of the TPP, senses blood in the water, it is moving quickly to assert itself, rather than the United States, as the region’s trade arbiter. China is aiming to close talks by the end of this year on its behemoth Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership—a trade agreement involving 15 other Asia-Pacific countries.
None of these deals are yet in effect. But already there are signs that competitors are gaining market share over U.S. producers in the post-TPP landscape, as Pacific nations take a closer look at alternatives to U.S. exporters.
Over the first five months of 2017, U.S. exports to Japan of chilled pork, which is preferable to frozen meat, are up 2 percent over the previous year. But exports of chilled pork from Canada, a prime competitor, are up 19 percent. Likewise, in frozen pork, U.S. exports are up 28 percent. But exports from the EU, the leading competitor, are up 44 percent.
Japan, which saw the TPP not only as a source of economic growth but a counterweight to China, is now taking the lead in salvaging the deal. Its goal is to have some sort of agreement between the 11 other countries in place for the annual summit of Asia-Pacific leaders in November. Trump is expected to attend, creating the awkward possibility that he will witness all the handshakes and back slaps as his fellow leaders congratulate themselves on a deal.
For his part, Trump once promised a slew of “beautiful” deals to replace the TPP, but his administration has yet to lay out a detailed strategy. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told lawmakers that an analysis is underway to determine where it makes most sense to pursue negotiations.
You're deliberately combining two very different things in the hope that nobody notices.
We're asking you to explain the benefits of forced arbitration through the surrendering of a legal right to pursue other options. What you're defending is the benefits of arbitration as a concept. Those are two very different things. Whether arbitration is beneficial to most types of claimants has no real bearing on whether surrendering the legal right to pursue other options is beneficial to most types of claimants. You keep arguing conclusion A (arbitration is good) and insisting that we take it as conclusion B (having no options but arbitration is good).
You are right that these are people who are willingly signing away their rights in these clauses. However your solution "if people object to them then the market will automatically lead to these clauses being removed as people vote with their wallets in favour of companies that don't have these clauses" is pretty absurd for a few reasons. Firstly, the average consumer cannot be expected to read and understand all these agreements. Secondly, there is often very little choice between rival companies when it comes to these agreements. Thirdly, all of the very thin market of options already have these agreements. Fourthly, they're not negotiable, this isn't two people in a room hammering out an agreement, this is a standardized accept/reject system, people cannot negotiate this specific clause. And fifthly, consumers have come to rely upon the government to enforce good faith in these agreements and limit how abusive they can be. That last one is important because it is wholly unrealistic to expect an individual to negotiate, let alone understand and enforce, every agreement they enter into. What this issue comes down to is that the nursing homes (and banks, and credit card companies, utilities etc) are making a demand that consumers surrender rights to all but one of their legal recourses in exchange for receiving service. That is not a good faith demand, people should be able to receive service without accepting that demand and that's exactly why we have the government to specifically render those kind of clauses unenforceable.
"You signed it" is not a defence, it's the exact problem that we have built the solution of government selectively rendering clauses unenforceable to resolve. It's a defence so utterly invalid that the rejection of it is the default assumption here.
On August 08 2017 04:02 KwarK wrote: You're deliberately combining two very different things in the hope that nobody notices.
We're asking you to explain the benefits of forced arbitration through the surrendering of a legal right to pursue other options. What you're defending is the benefits of arbitration as a concept. Those are two very different things. Whether arbitration is beneficial to most types of claimants has no real bearing on whether surrendering the legal right to pursue other options is beneficial to most types of claimants. You keep arguing conclusion A (arbitration is good) and insisting that we take it as conclusion B (having no options but arbitration is good).
You are right that these are people who are willingly signing away their rights in these clauses. However your solution "if people object to them then the market will automatically lead to these clauses being removed as people vote with their wallets in favour of companies that don't have these clauses" is pretty absurd for a few reasons. Firstly, the average consumer cannot be expected to read and understand all these agreements. Secondly, there is often very little choice between rival companies when it comes to these agreements. Thirdly, all of the very thin market of options already have these agreements. Fourthly, they're not negotiable, this isn't two people in a room hammering out an agreement, this is a standardized accept/reject system, people cannot negotiate this specific clause. And fifthly, consumers have come to rely upon the government to enforce good faith in these agreements and limit how abusive they can be. That last one is important because it is wholly unrealistic to expect an individual to negotiate, let alone understand and enforce, every agreement they enter into. What this issue comes down to is that the nursing homes (and banks, and credit card companies, utilities etc) are making a demand that consumers surrender rights to all but one of their legal recourses in exchange for receiving service. That is not a good faith demand, people should be able to receive service without accepting that demand and that's exactly why we have the government to specifically render those kind of clauses unenforceable.
"You signed it" is not a defence, it's the exact problem that we have built the solution of government selectively rendering clauses unenforceable to resolve. It's a defence so utterly invalid that the rejection of it is the default assumption here.
That phrase has been etched in my memory ever since the Columbia house/BMG CD's that never got paid for.
As for the arbitration part, I think one would have a better argument (though still sketchy) if it was like how Uber and some other companies do it, where you are agreeing to arbitration unless you send them a letter opting out.
One problem is if there are systemic behavioral issues (haven't read the details of the agreement) that may leave people somewhat defenseless.
Like let's say one of the large chain homes has an unwritten but widely used strategy of saving money by providing insufficient supervision, one grandma going to arbitration does jack to resolve the company wide issue. However, if she was one of hundreds or thousands of grandmas in a class action suit, they probably change the policy across the chain.
On August 08 2017 04:02 KwarK wrote: You're deliberately combining two very different things in the hope that nobody notices.
We're asking you to explain the benefits of forced arbitration through the surrendering of a legal right to pursue other options. What you're defending is the benefits of arbitration as a concept. Those are two very different things. Whether arbitration is beneficial to most types of claimants has no real bearing on whether surrendering the legal right to pursue other options is beneficial to most types of claimants. You keep arguing conclusion A (arbitration is good) and insisting that we take it as conclusion B (having no options but arbitration is good).
You're drawing a meaningless distinction. Once you sign an arbitration agreement and the arbitration provisions are triggered, the option to litigate in court disappears. There is no option at this point, nor should there be by virtue of contract law. We can sit here and mentally wank ourselves by pointing out that it would be nice if claimants had the unilateral option to sue in court as well if they want, but that's simply not how arbitration clauses work. What happens very infrequently is that a dispute arises that is not subject to arbitration, but the parties decide to arbitrate anyway. However, agreement of both parties to submit to arbitration is still prerequisite. There is no unilateral option for the plaintiff.
Once you understand this, then the question clearly becomes "is arbitration a good thing for most plaintiffs?" And I have already laid out many of the reasons why it is.
EDIT: Just to avoid any problems, let me point out the obvious that arbitration clauses can be drafted however people want them. However, they almost always are provisions that apply bilaterally and encompass anything that arises from the larger contract between the parties.
On August 08 2017 02:53 TheYango wrote: My understanding of xDaunt's point thus far is that "arbitration as an option" leads to arbitration being underutilized in practice due to the inherent conflict of interest for a plaintiff's trial lawyers (since they make more $$$ if the case goes to trial). Forced arbitration is therefore a net gain via removing the option for bad faith-decisions made by trial lawyers for their own personal gain.
I'm not knowledgeable enough on the subject in question to assess the truthfulness of the claims made, but from an outside perspective, forced arbitration doesn't seem like solution to this problem. But it is *a* solution.
My argument is that forced arbitration is not necessarily a bad thing, and for most claimants, it is likely a better way of resolving their claims. Thus, most criticisms of these types of clauses are misplaced.
I'm still just not getting it. I'm fine with the concept that arbitration is a better way of resolving claims. Where you lose me is why that means it should be forced upon people. Especially coming from a conservative who normally lean towards "I don't need the big government telling me how much lead paint to lick off the walls".
Are you going with "most people aren't harmed by stripping away their legal right to a trial so it's not a big deal"? Because otherwise I just don't see the link between "arbitration is often a good choice" and "people shouldn't have the right to go to trial".
First, this is not a situation where government is forcing arbitration upon people. This is a situation where the government is removing rules that would prevent nursing homes from inserting arbitration clauses into their resident agreements. The conservative answer (such as it is) to the claimant's concern about giving up the right to a jury trial is that the claimant is free to use a nursing home that does not insert arbitration clauses into their resident agreements.
Second, and as I have discussed above, the effect of giving up the right to a jury trial is not really a big deal, and if anything, it is beneficial to most types of claimants.
The thing is though is that if its better for the business to have a forced arbitration clause then why would any nursing home not have one and therefore you do not have a choice or if you do its one of the ones that is so expensive that a normal person could not reasonably afford it.
My question would be simply when they made this change who was it designed to benefit. It MIGHT benefit people because arbitration is often the correct course for reasons you said but it will no doubt benefit the people running those homes and I am hardpressed to not believe that was the motivation behind the change.
On August 08 2017 02:53 TheYango wrote: My understanding of xDaunt's point thus far is that "arbitration as an option" leads to arbitration being underutilized in practice due to the inherent conflict of interest for a plaintiff's trial lawyers (since they make more $$$ if the case goes to trial). Forced arbitration is therefore a net gain via removing the option for bad faith-decisions made by trial lawyers for their own personal gain.
I'm not knowledgeable enough on the subject in question to assess the truthfulness of the claims made, but from an outside perspective, forced arbitration doesn't seem like solution to this problem. But it is *a* solution.
My argument is that forced arbitration is not necessarily a bad thing, and for most claimants, it is likely a better way of resolving their claims. Thus, most criticisms of these types of clauses are misplaced.
I'm still just not getting it. I'm fine with the concept that arbitration is a better way of resolving claims. Where you lose me is why that means it should be forced upon people. Especially coming from a conservative who normally lean towards "I don't need the big government telling me how much lead paint to lick off the walls".
Are you going with "most people aren't harmed by stripping away their legal right to a trial so it's not a big deal"? Because otherwise I just don't see the link between "arbitration is often a good choice" and "people shouldn't have the right to go to trial".
First, this is not a situation where government is forcing arbitration upon people. This is a situation where the government is removing rules that would prevent nursing homes from inserting arbitration clauses into their resident agreements. The conservative answer (such as it is) to the claimant's concern about giving up the right to a jury trial is that the claimant is free to use a nursing home that does not insert arbitration clauses into their resident agreements.
Second, and as I have discussed above, the effect of giving up the right to a jury trial is not really a big deal, and if anything, it is beneficial to most types of claimants.
The thing is though is that if its better for the business to have a forced arbitration clause then why would any nursing home not have one and therefore you do not have a choice or if you do its one of the ones that is so expensive that a normal person could not reasonably afford it.
My question would be simply when they made this change who was it designed to benefit. It MIGHT benefit people because arbitration is often the correct course for reasons you said but it will no doubt benefit the people running those homes and I am hardpressed to not believe that was the motivation behind the change.
Like I already pointed out, many businesses want the arbitration clauses because they want class action protection. And for those few plaintiffs for whom a class action would be beneficial, that sucks. However, the economics of civil litigation are such that most claimants will be better off in arbitration -- particularly an arbitration that dispenses with many of the formalities of court.
Okay, I'll try and make this easier for you to understand. Four situations.
1) If someone wanted arbitration and there was no mandatory arbitration clause they'd go to arbitration. That's fine. 2) If someone didn't want arbitration and there was no mandatory arbitration clause they'd not go to arbitration. That's fine. 3) If someone wanted arbitration and there was a mandatory arbitration clause they'd go to arbitration. That's fine. 4) If someone didn't want arbitration and there was a mandatory arbitration clause they'd go to arbitration. That's less fine.
What I am trying to get from you is the benefit of the mandatory arbitration clause to the consumer. To do this you will need to show that 4 is better than 2. And whether arbitration is good doesn't matter. Watch, I'll do the same for pizza.
1) If someone wanted pepperoni and there was no mandatory pepperoni clause they'd get a pepperoni pizza. That's fine. 2) If someone didn't want pepperoni and there was no mandatory pepperoni clause they'd not get a pepperoni pizza. That's fine. 3) If someone wanted pepperoni and there was a mandatory pepperoni clause they'd get a pepperoni pizza. That's fine. 4) If someone didn't want pepperoni and there was a mandatory pepperoni clause they'd get a pepperoni pizza. That's less fine.
The merits of pepperoni pizza on pizza aren't really the point, as I'm sure you'll now see.
On August 08 2017 05:05 KwarK wrote: Okay, I'll try and make this easier for you to understand. Four situations.
1) If someone wanted arbitration and there was no mandatory arbitration clause they'd go to arbitration. That's fine. 2) If someone didn't want arbitration and there was no mandatory arbitration clause they'd not go to arbitration. That's fine. 3) If someone wanted arbitration and there was a mandatory arbitration clause they'd go to arbitration. That's fine. 4) If someone didn't want arbitration and there was a mandatory arbitration clause they'd go to arbitration. That's less fine.
What I am trying to get from you is the benefit of the mandatory arbitration clause to the consumer. To do this you will need to show that 4 is better than 2. And whether arbitration is good doesn't matter. Watch, I'll do the same for pizza.
1) If someone wanted pepperoni and there was no mandatory pepperoni clause they'd get a pepperoni pizza. That's fine. 2) If someone didn't want pepperoni and there was no mandatory pepperoni clause they'd not get a pepperoni pizza. That's fine. 3) If someone wanted pepperoni and there was a mandatory pepperoni clause they'd get a pepperoni pizza. That's fine. 4) If someone didn't want pepperoni and there was a mandatory pepperoni clause they'd get a pepperoni pizza. That's less fine.
The merits of pepperoni pizza on pizza aren't really the point, as I'm sure you'll now see.
I've already made the argument for 4 repeatedly: arbitration is a cheaper alternative to civil litigation that affords better expected results to claimants (ie the little guy) that range from faster and cheaper dispute resolution to access to a remedy at all due to the claim being otherwise uneconomic for lawyers to get involved.
EDIT: I thought we were past this already when you wrote the following:
I'm still just not getting it. I'm fine with the concept that arbitration is a better way of resolving claims. Where you lose me is why that means it should be forced upon people. Especially coming from a conservative who normally lean towards "I don't need the big government telling me how much lead paint to lick off the walls".
If you're okay with the concept that arbitration is a better way of resolving claims, then asking me about the benefit to the consumer is rather superfluous.
On August 08 2017 05:05 KwarK wrote: Okay, I'll try and make this easier for you to understand. Four situations.
1) If someone wanted arbitration and there was no mandatory arbitration clause they'd go to arbitration. That's fine. 2) If someone didn't want arbitration and there was no mandatory arbitration clause they'd not go to arbitration. That's fine. 3) If someone wanted arbitration and there was a mandatory arbitration clause they'd go to arbitration. That's fine. 4) If someone didn't want arbitration and there was a mandatory arbitration clause they'd go to arbitration. That's less fine.
What I am trying to get from you is the benefit of the mandatory arbitration clause to the consumer. To do this you will need to show that 4 is better than 2. And whether arbitration is good doesn't matter. Watch, I'll do the same for pizza.
1) If someone wanted pepperoni and there was no mandatory pepperoni clause they'd get a pepperoni pizza. That's fine. 2) If someone didn't want pepperoni and there was no mandatory pepperoni clause they'd not get a pepperoni pizza. That's fine. 3) If someone wanted pepperoni and there was a mandatory pepperoni clause they'd get a pepperoni pizza. That's fine. 4) If someone didn't want pepperoni and there was a mandatory pepperoni clause they'd get a pepperoni pizza. That's less fine.
The merits of pepperoni pizza on pizza aren't really the point, as I'm sure you'll now see.
I've already made the argument for 4 repeatedly: arbitration is a cheaper alternative to civil litigation that affords better expected results to claimants (ie the little guy) that range from faster and cheaper dispute resolution to access to a remedy at all due to the claim being otherwise uneconomic for lawyers to get involved.
That's the argument for 1 and 3. You might as well say "pepperoni is really tasty" as your argument for the benefits of a mandatory pepperoni clause.
EPT
