Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) unveiled a 1,336-page financial reform bill today, as consumer advocates warned that it doesn’t offer enough to protect the public and concentrates too much power in the Federal Reserve, and bankers complained the bill would “confuse consumers and businesses.” No wonder Dodd’s quitting his job. [More]
Government Policy
Pilots Who Missed Minnesota Will Not Appeal License Revocation
By 3.15.10
Remember those Northwest Airlines pilots who were too busy looking at their laptops to bother landing in Minneapolis? They have made a deal with the FAA to drop their appeal to have their licenses reinstated. [More]
States Realizing That A $50 Rebate Won't Make A Broke Person Buy A Fridge
By 3.15.10
USAToday says some states, like Iowa and Minnesota, offered nice big rebates ($100 to $250 or more) in the cash for appliances stimulus program. Consequently, those states gave away the money and had a successful program. Meanwhile, New York, which offered only a $75 rebate on a new fridge or clothes washer, set a 10-day window in February for its $16.8 million in rebates, has $7 million left a month a month later. [More]
FCC Leaks Summary Of National Broadband Plan
By 3.15.10
The FCC has released a scan (PDF) of the five-page executive summary of the National Broadband Plan that it will present to Congress in two days. Although the summary is packed with recommendations, here’s a couple that a lot of broadband customers might be interested in: the FCC wants to develop “disclosure requirements for broadband service providers” so that consumers can make the best choice for service, and it wants to map broadband services across the country to better identify “specific geographies or market segments” where there’s not enough competition. [More]
Inspectors Unable To Replicate Braking Problem In Runaway Prius Case
By 3.15.10
Inspectors looking into last week’s runaway Prius in Southern California are having troubled determining the cause of the incident, and haven’t been able to replicate the braking problem. [More]
Stay On Top Of New And Overlooked Deductions
By 3.15.10
Are you up-to-date with all the tax code changes this year? The TurboTax blog rounds up some of the newest tax credits and highlights deductions that people sometimes sleep on, like the long-term resident credit and unemployment and job search deductions. More coin in your coinpurse means you can buy all the churros you want this year! Update: Looks like we broke their blog. Here’s a cached copy of the post in question. [More]
Test Your Broadband Speeds For The FCC
By 3.15.10
Last Thursday, the FCC started collecting information from consumers about the quality of their broadband service. If you’ve got a PC that can run Java, you can go to Broadband.gov and run the test now. (The FCC will collect your IP address and physical address, but not your name or email address, reports Wired.) If you’ve got an iPhone or Android smartphone, you can download an app to measure your connectivity and report it. [More]
Netflix Cancels $1 Million Contest, Settles Privacy Lawsuit
By 3.12.10
As part of a settlement in a privacy lawsuit filed against Netflix late last year, the video delivery service has called off their $1 million Next Big Thing contest that started the whole problem in the first place. [More]
Are You Eligible For Tax Credits? Follow This Handy Flowchart
By 3.12.10
Do you suspect you may be eligible for tax credits for to purchasing a new home or remodeling an existing one, but would like a sleek, simple infographic to guide you? Fixr is here to help, with a simple guide to this year’s tax credits. [More]
Ask The Administration Your Health Reform Questions
By 3.12.10
Consumer Reports is going to the White House to ask them what’s up with health reform, and they need your questions press to them. The Health Blog is going to interview Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, the crackerjack former state insurance commissioner of Kansas. What does health reform mean? How much will it cost? Are we going to get savings or will private doctors get run out of business? Leave your questions in the comments here or over on the Consumer Reports Health Blog or email it to tips@consumerist.com, subject “health reform.”
Ask a top administration official your questions about health reform [Consumer Reports Health Blog]
D.C. Has Customers Pay For Grocery Bags, Law Cuts Down On Waste
By 3.12.10
A Washington, D.C. law mandates shoppers shell out a nickel for each grocery bag they use, and the regulation has caused people to stop taking as many unnecessary bags and reduced waste, the Baltimore Sun reports. [More]
Runaway Prius Was On Its Way To Dealership Before Crash
By 3.12.10
Remember the story the other day about the woman in New York who slammed her runaway Prius into a stone wall? In an interesting little twist, the police say she was actually on her way to the Toyota dealership to have her car serviced when the incident occurred. [More]
Use This Calculator To Set Your Paycheck Withholdings
By 3.12.10
Tax refunds are fool’s gold, because they’re interest free loans you’ve been floating to the government all year long. The ideal move is to have just the right amount deducted from your paycheck each week so you’ll pay a small amount come tax time. [More]
How Bags Of Oranges Costs More Than Coke
By 3.12.10
This is also why you’re fat. A graph of inflation-adjusted data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows how the prices of different food and beverages has changed over the past three decades. The price of crap food over the past 30 years has dropped. At the same time, the food you used to try to hide in your glass of milk has gotten steadily more expensive. No wonder the average man in his 60’s is 25 lbs heavier than he was in the late 70’s. Hey, govmnt, how about shifting some of those corn and soybean subsidies over to produce growers? [More]
Court Rules Against Selling Pink Floyd Songs Separately
By 3.11.10
In a legal decision that could have a ripple effect on the digital download market, a British court has ruled that record label EMI can not sell songs from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album as individual downloads or ringtones. [More]
Woman Crashes Toyota Into Church, Blames Stuck Accelerator
By 3.11.10
Another day, another report of a Toyota crash being blamed on a stuck gas pedal. This time, it’s a 76-year-old woman in Connecticut claiming her recalled Toyota Camry went nuts on her and — in spite of her best efforts to stop it — crashed into a church. [More]
Consumer Protection Agency May Exempt Payday Lenders, Pawn Shops, Entire Point
By 3.11.10
The Washington Post reports that thanks to legislative compromise, banks and mortgage brokers may be the only financial institutions regulated by the proposed federal Consumer Financial Protection Agency–leaving entities that loan money but don’t hold bank charters, such as auto dealers, pawn shops, and payday lenders, unregulated by the industry. Now an unholy alliance of banking industry groups and consumer advocates are fighting the proposal, each for their own reasons. [More]
Toyota Probably Should Have Written This Spam's Subject Line More Carefully
By 3.11.10
“Amazing Incentives For Select Toyotas That Will Not Last Long.”
Reader Maida did a spit-take when this email from a Toyota dealer offering 0% APR for 60 months landed in her inbox. Yeeks, talk about a syntactical pileup.
