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.
The irony of this is Trump is pretty much keeping the NYT in business against the print media decline with the surge in Trump coverage and him giving interviews for the failing paper.
Are these numbers not available? How can someone assess NYT profitability?
On August 08 2017 06:27 KwarK wrote: The problem of adhesion contracts, disparities in bargaining power, and lack of market choice and the problem of the government enforcing those mandatory arbitration agreements can't really be separated. When the lawyer for the corporation asks the judge to dismiss the suit on the grounds of the plaintiffs having already contractually surrendered their rights to pursue justice through the courts, that involves the government. The government makes a decision to either enforce the mandatory arbitration agreement or declare it unenforceable.
You can argue that they should be enforceable as you attempted to do earlier by suggesting that anything people willingly sign ought to be enforceable. But you can't insist that it has nothing to do with the government. Enforcement of contracts (and the lack of enforcement) is within the scope of government.
If you're going to make that argument, then what you're really arguing is that the government is involved in every private dealing between parties because it is the province of the government (ie the courts) to enforce all contracts. So now we have government involvement in all contractual dealings, whether it be the purchase of cheese at a grocery store or whatever bullshit is going on at Craigslist. There's no functional difference between any of these contracts and arbitration agreements. All are subject to judicial enforcement, which is why arguing against my earlier point regarding the lack of government involvement in arbitration agreements is absurd. Enforcement should not be conflated with actual involvement.
The level of involvement I'm discussing here is the level of involvement in every private dealing between parties. So yes, there is government involvement in all contractual dealings, including the purchase of cheese. If I take cheese from a store and don't pay they'd want the government to enforce the contract.
As you say, they're all subject to judicial enforcement. You just spent a while arguing my point, that all contracts are subject to the government for enforcement or non enforcement, before insisting that you're right.
I mean I don't even know how to argue against what you just said. I agree with the argument. Hell, I already made that argument. When you sign a contract with Verizon that involves a mandatory arbitration clause then they plan to go to the government to get that enforced. Therefore whether or not it is enforceable is the province of the government. Exactly the same as if you make a contract to purchase cheese from a grocery store and don't pay. Whether or not they can make you pay is the province of the government.
The decision to make mandatory arbitration agreements enforceable is government involvement. Hell, take the classic example of overly broad non compete agreements. Many states have declared them unenforceable. People can sign them, agree to them, put them in contracts etc, but when a party breaches it and the other party desires a remedy to be imposed by the courts, the government refuse to enforce it.
The irony of this is Trump is pretty much keeping the NYT in business against the print media decline with the surge in Trump coverage and him giving interviews for the failing paper.
Are these numbers not available? How can someone assess NYT profitability?
Ok, I'm honestly not following this discussion very well despite having read it all, so I have one simple question for you, xDaunt: why is it a good idea to be able to force arbitration, rather than simply giving it as an option, in this context?
On August 08 2017 06:46 KwarK wrote: The level of involvement I'm discussing here is the level of involvement in every private dealing between parties. So yes, there is government involvement in all contractual dealings, including the purchase of cheese. If I take cheese from a store and don't pay they'd want the government to enforce the contract.
As you say, they're all subject to judicial enforcement. You just spent a while arguing my point, that all contracts are subject to the government for enforcement or non enforcement, before insisting that you're right.
I mean I don't even know how to argue against what you just said. I agree with the argument. Hell, I already made that argument. When you sign a contract with Verizon that involves a mandatory arbitration clause then they plan to go to the government to get that enforced. Therefore whether or not it is enforceable is the province of the government. Exactly the same as if you make a contract to purchase cheese from a grocery store and don't pay. Whether or not they can make you pay is the province of the government.
The decision to make mandatory arbitration agreements enforceable is government involvement. Hell, take the classic example of overly broad non compete agreements. Many states have declared them unenforceable. People can sign them, agree to them, put them in contracts etc, but when a party breaches it and the other party desires a remedy to be imposed by the courts, the government refuse to enforce it.
None of this is technically incorrect, but generally no one uses "government involvement" in this way (ie including judicial enforcement in the definition). "Government involvement" is typically reserved for legislative and administrative action.
On August 08 2017 06:55 LegalLord wrote: Ok, I'm honestly not following this discussion very well despite having read it all, so I have one simple question for you, xDaunt: why is it a good idea to be able to force arbitration, rather than simply giving it as an option, in this context?
Because contracts matter and should generally be enforced unless there are compelling reasons not to. This is all foundational to the concept of the rule of law.
Like I said before, there really isn't any such thing as making arbitration an option. Typically, there's either mandatory arbitration by virtue of the contract or there's no arbitration clause at all. In the latter circumstance, arbitration is still technically a possibility, but it is usually prohibitively difficult to agree to terms on arbitration when a dispute has already arisen. If governments wanted to, they could create legislation that gives certain classes of persons the right to opt out of arbitration, but that's another topic.
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.
Here's the youtube link just in case:
why is it only in video format instead of written? is this video an example of hypernormalization itself?
Lol, if only right? But then you would spread it on the internet, which can turn the paper format into hypernormalization. The best result would just be to send it to everyone the country paperback.
I haven't seen it so far, but the first 30 minutes, pretty much match up a lot of it's history. I haven't also checked it's sources, waiting till the credits.
On August 08 2017 06:55 LegalLord wrote: Ok, I'm honestly not following this discussion very well despite having read it all, so I have one simple question for you, xDaunt: why is it a good idea to be able to force arbitration, rather than simply giving it as an option, in this context?
If I understand correctly, xDaunt believes that plaintiffs almost never use arbitration as a method for grievance redressal unless enforced by the government to do so, because it is always profitable for the lawyers to litigate (preferably as a class-action), bu this is not always in the best interests of the plaintiffs, especially for claims under a certain threshold.
I also believe he places a higher value on the free market principles of Government not interfering in the merits and details of a contract between two private parties, other than to ensure its enforcement.
Its a rather specious argument to make considering the lack of choices for most average consumers, coupled with the fact that almost all nursing homes and care providers end up having the same contracts almost verbatim, thus ensuring that consumers have no say in the matter.
On August 08 2017 06:55 LegalLord wrote: Ok, I'm honestly not following this discussion very well despite having read it all, so I have one simple question for you, xDaunt: why is it a good idea to be able to force arbitration, rather than simply giving it as an option, in this context?
Because contracts matter and should generally be enforced unless there are compelling reasons not to. This is all foundational to the concept of the rule of law..
Compelling reasons like corporations stacking the deck in their favor by forcing arbitration and denying class action lawsuits and all of them doing it so that 'consumer choice' does not exist?
Positive bottom line since 2013, business valued at 3B, share price at 19.15 up from 12.79 a year ago. As for liabilities, they're at 1.3B while assets are 2.2B, so pretty decent situation there. Trump's talking bs with the simple objective of lowering NYT's status in the eyes of his financially illiterate base.
What it comes down to is that people rely upon government intervention, whether it be through the judiciary or the legislative, to limit how abusive contracts can be. They have to. The issues relating to bargaining power, rival options, comprehension, ability to freely opt out and so forth have all already been discussed and don't need repeating. The summary is that there is an expectation that a contract you sign can't be too abusive without also being unenforceable and that this expectation is necessary for business and commerce to continue in a reasonable way.
The question therefore becomes how abusive need a contract be before the government steps in, whether it be through the courts refusing to enforce it (see non competes) or the executive banning it (see Obama era CFPB bans on banking mandatory arbitration (now repealed)). There is no question that the government is involved, the question is how involved should the government be.
It varies on a case by case basis naturally. If the contract is in plain language and has been understood and acknowledged by the parties, both parties had an opportunity to negotiate that specific clause, the service was not essential, other providers without the clause offered the service, and so forth then by all means allow people to agree to whatever they wish.
Mandatory arbitration is not to the advantage of the consumer, the corporation includes that clause because it expects a monetary benefit from it. If a consumer negotiated a discount specifically in exchange for surrendering all but one of their legal remedies I would probably be fine with that. But in the common usage of these clauses it's more of an unfortunate surprise that hurts classes of consumers who have been wronged by a corporation while doing nothing to help those who would have voluntarily sought arbitration. A one sided benefit and the kind of thing we would expect the government to protect us from.
I'll confess that I don't read the ToS to a lot of the services I accept, I assume good faith on behalf of the other party and unenforceability in the case of bad faith. I don't think that's an unreasonable assumption. Where specifics matter and I can be expected to understand/negotiate, such as rental agreements, I'm diligent but when Apple asks me to sign something in order to use my iPhone I'm just going to sign it.
On August 08 2017 06:55 LegalLord wrote: Ok, I'm honestly not following this discussion very well despite having read it all, so I have one simple question for you, xDaunt: why is it a good idea to be able to force arbitration, rather than simply giving it as an option, in this context?
If I understand correctly, xDaunt believes that plaintiffs almost never use arbitration as a method for grievance redressal unless enforced by the government to do so, because it is always profitable for the lawyers to litigate (preferably as a class-action), bu this is not always in the best interests of the plaintiffs, especially for claims under a certain threshold.
Again, the government cannot force arbitration unless there is an agreement between the parties to arbitrate. If I were to kick you in the balls, you could not force me to arbitrate your claim arising from said nutsack abuse. Likewise, I could not force you to arbitrate the claim. The reasons why most claims not already subject to arbitration aren't arbitrated are complicated, but the biggest is that it is difficult for the parties to agree to anything once a dispute has arisen.
I also believe he places a higher value on the free market principles of Government not interfering in the merits and details of a contract between two private parties, other than to ensure its enforcement.
I do place a higher value on free market principles than most, but this isn't really an issue at the judicial level. This is a legislative and administrative concern -- ie should the government regulate arbitration clauses in consumer contracts.
Its a rather specious argument to make considering the lack of choices for most average consumers, coupled with the fact that almost all nursing homes and care providers end up having the same contracts almost verbatim, thus ensuring that consumers have no say in the matter.
I find it curious that you think that my argument is specious when you haven't demonstrated that you even understand it. Also, take it from someone who has clients in the nursing home industry -- there's a ton of players in the industry and, as a result, a bunch of variety in the contracts.
On August 08 2017 06:55 LegalLord wrote: Ok, I'm honestly not following this discussion very well despite having read it all, so I have one simple question for you, xDaunt: why is it a good idea to be able to force arbitration, rather than simply giving it as an option, in this context?
Because contracts matter and should generally be enforced unless there are compelling reasons not to. This is all foundational to the concept of the rule of law.
Like I said before, there really isn't any such thing as making arbitration an option. Typically, there's either mandatory arbitration by virtue of the contract or there's no arbitration clause at all. In the latter circumstance, arbitration is still technically a possibility, but it is usually prohibitively difficult to agree to terms on arbitration when a dispute has already arisen. If governments wanted to, they could create legislation that gives certain classes of persons the right to opt out of arbitration, but that's another topic.
seems to me the issue is that bigcorp, inc. vs joe shmoe there is pretty big power/ knowledge asymmetry. bigcorp, inc writes the contract and includes the mandatory/ binding arbitration clause, which joe schmoe, unlike xdaunt esquire and some of the more legally-inclined/ knowledgeable people here, may not even understand (and hell let's be real 99.whatever % of people don't read the stuff unless you're a weirdo like me who goes through a lease agreement and notices sneaky changes from the state association template and finagles concessions with it).
i agree contracts should generally be enforced, but corp vs consumer wrt arbitration is, for the lack of a more lawyerly phrase, kind of unfair and might be one of those areas where the gov can stand in and (i) curtail it (extreme) (ii) require companies to put it in layman's terms and big bold letters what the implications of the arbitration clause are or (iii - x) some other consumer-friendly option.
i will have to dig up notes from my legal courses, but i believe there is a decent body of literature about the use of mandatory arbitration with consumers.
Periodic reminder that Bernie's sole mission is division of a party that he refuses to join. Bernie is planning to have his Our Revolution people primary moderate Democrats all around the country if they dare not buy into his $18 trillion dollars in the hole healthcare plan.
“Our view is that within the Democratic Party, this is fast-emerging as a litmus test,” said Ben Tulchin, the pollster for Sanders’ White House run. ... “There’s a concern that [Sanders allied] people will try to make a stir,” said a senior Democratic aide working on a 2018 campaign. “You can’t just be a liberal Democrat in a lot of these states and be elected. [So] the question is how we improve the lives of people instead of playing these political games."
Sanders allies don’t find that argument convincing.
“Any Democrat worth their salt that doesn’t unequivocally say Medicare-for-all is the way to go? To me, there’s something wrong with them,” said former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution. “We’re not going to accept no more hemming and hawing. No more game playing. Make your stand.”
Another periodic reminder, Berniecare was found to be $18 trillion in the hole and zero professional analysis has contradicted that number. No, citing Canada is not an answer since all legislation in the USA must go from the USA baseline, thus only analysis of the USA can be used to push back against the -$18 trillion number. See, http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/analysis-senator-bernie-sanderss-tax-and-transfer-proposals Once again Sanders and his crew plan on attacking vulnerable Democrats on the basis of a plan that they refuse to defend on the financial merits.
Funny that you cut out the line that comes directly before that quote, you'd think someone so insistent on railing against division would be careful to not sew any where it needn't belong....
The Vermont senator himself has not explicitly said he’ll support primary challenges to those who won’t support his push for a so-called Medicare-for-all health care plan. But there are plenty of signs that Sanders and his allies view the issue as a defining moment for Democratic lawmakers.
So yeah, looks like "...Bernie's sole mission is division of a party that he refuses to join. Bernie is planning to have his Our Revolution people primary moderate Democrats all around the country if they dare not buy into his $18 trillion dollars in the hole healthcare plan" is hyperbolic nonsense founded on taking the words of pollsters at face value.
For an opposing viewpoint not intended to sew division, though admittedly only current as of July 3....
On the ground, there is near-perfect unity over the view that the first priority of the entire left-of-center firmament should be to defeat the Senate GOP health care bill. At a Capitol Hill health care rally last week, Senator Bernie Sanders described the “job” of “finally pass[ing] a Medicare-for-all, single-payer program” as one that comes “after we defeat this disastrous [Trumpcare bill], and after we improve the Affordable Care Act.”
Your post is pretty bad and you should feel bad. Bernie sanders plan is single payer health care and you didn't even give context for your "$18 Trillion in the hole" quote. It would be increasing federal deifcits by $18 Trillion over a decade If we belive the stats that you quote.
You can't use analysis of a system based on data from a completely different system. Use data from the system from other implementation of the system and scale it up for the US. Thats what you would do for anything else. OFC its going to be hella expensive to tax the populace for a quarter or more of the economy to go through the government from now on but its worked in every other situation its been used and the system we have now is barely getting us by.
A new poll shows Donald Trump’s support dropping with his strongest supporters as he hits the 200-day mark of his presidency.
In a fresh survey from CNN, conducted by the independent research company SSRS, Trump’s “strong approval” among Republicans has dropped from 73 percent in February, shortly after he took office, to 59 percent now. Overall, 83 percent of Republicans approve of Trump’s performance, with 14 percent disapproving.
Notably, there’s erosion in enthusiasm among important subgroups: Trump’s “strong approval” among whites without a college degree — a group that helped propel him to office — dropped 12 percentage points from February.
The poll mirrors other recent surveys in finding Trump’s overall approval rating underwater. It comes after a month of setbacks and turmoil for the White House — including the failure to pass an Obamacare repeal in the Senate and the replacement of Trump’s chief of staff. CNN and SSRS conducted the survey to mark the 200-day point of Trump's presidency.
Among all respondents, a little more than a third, 38 percent, approve of Trump’s job performance, with 56 percent disapproving. Those who oppose Trump seem to feel more strongly about it, according to the CNN-SSRS poll: 47 percent who disapprove of him said they felt strongly about it, compared with just 24 percent who said they strongly approved of his performance.
The poll shows a significant number of Americans don’t trust what they hear from the White House: 30 percent of respondents said they trust nothing the White House said; just 24 percent said they trust all or most of what the White House says.
There are some positive indicators for Trump. A little more than 50 percent of those surveyed said they feel things are going well in the country. A narrow plurality — 48 percent to 47 percent — approved of Trump’s performance on national security issues.
The CNN-SSRS poll was conducted by telephone Aug. 3-6 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.
On August 08 2017 09:48 ticklishmusic wrote: seems to me the issue is that bigcorp, inc. vs joe shmoe there is pretty big power/ knowledge asymmetry. bigcorp, inc writes the contract and includes the mandatory/ binding arbitration clause, which joe schmoe, unlike xdaunt esquire and some of the more legally-inclined/ knowledgeable people here, may not even understand (and hell let's be real 99.whatever % of people don't read the stuff unless you're a weirdo like me who goes through a lease agreement and notices sneaky changes from the state association template and finagles concessions with it).
i agree contracts should generally be enforced, but corp vs consumer wrt arbitration is, for the lack of a more lawyerly phrase, kind of unfair and might be one of those areas where the gov can stand in and (i) curtail it (extreme) (ii) require companies to put it in layman's terms and big bold letters what the implications of the arbitration clause are or (iii - x) some other consumer-friendly option.
i will have to dig up notes from my legal courses, but i believe there is a decent body of literature about the use of mandatory arbitration with consumers.
There's obviously a big disparity in sophistication and power between big corporations and Joe Shmoe consumer. My only point is that I find it curious that, of all of the shit that big corporations put into their contracts, people make a big stink over the arbitration clauses. Arbitration clauses are benign compared to some of the other shit that big corporations put into their contracts. Arbitration clauses merely alter the remedial process. The other shit that I'm referring to alters or even eliminates the remedy.