Denialism Blog

Author: denialism_bv2x6a

  • Will the Lead Toy Industry Get Bailed Out?

    Who cares about moral hazard anymore! AEI, Cato, where are you when we need you?

    It goes something like this: A group of companies that chose to put lead in children’s toys, or to offshore their operations to countries with poor manufacturing controls in order to save money, are now upset that their schemes are going to cost them money. The government has the audacity to do something about this crisis, and guess what, it costs the industry money! Maybe they should have incorporated the costs of lead when they decided to offshore!

    Joseph Pereira of the Journal reports:

    Makers of children’s products and charities that run second-hand shops are stuck with more than $1 billion of inventory they can’t sell because of a new federal product-safety law, according to surveys by trade groups and the charities.

    They’re stuck with this inventory because of a new federal product safety law? What a way to shift the blame! If the industry as a whole maintained quality controls, we wouldn’t be in a toxic toy crisis, and then the federal safety law would not have been passed. Consumer protection laws do not just pass out of the blue; they are motivated by serious, overwhelmingly problematic situations. Trust me on this, there are 100 lobbyists against any consumer protection matter for each advocate in favor of it. They only pass when agencies and Congress have no option but to side with the single advocate.

    The Toy Industry Association estimates that more than $600 million in toys made illegal by the law are sitting in manufacturers’ warehouses or have already been shipped to retailers. A trade group for small apparel makers in New York called the Coalition for Safe and Affordable Childrenswear says its members have a $500 million problem. And the California Fashion Association, which represents many Western clothes makers, puts their troubled inventories at $200 million.

    The trade groups were reluctant to disclose the names of the companies affected or provide documentation in support of their estimates.

    Yep. Sounds like they’ll be next in line for a bailout.

  • For-Profit Fundraising Fleeces the Charitable

    Phillip Reese and Andrew McIntosh of the Sacramento Bee report:

    If you give to a charity over the phone, there’s a growing likelihood that most of your donation will go to the telemarketer instead, according to a Bee analysis of state records.

    More than a third of California charity telemarketing campaigns sent less than 20 cents on the dollar to the charities during 2007, the most recent year on record. Those campaigns and a smaller number of charity auctions and concerts raised $93 million for commercial fundraisers, and just $3 million for the charities.

    There are some eye-popping numbers in the report (PDF) released by the California Attorney General. The Bee points to the American Diabetes Association, where in California alone, commercial fundraisers generated $13,000,000 in donations at a cost of $17,000,000. That organization is an outlier, but other prominent charities had significant negative revenue using telemarketing and other commercially-operated fundraising.

    The most effective for-profit fundraising was done on behalf of the Ronald Regan Presidential Foundation, with 92% of a $3,482,100 bounty going to the organization!

    Since the creation of the Do-Not-Call Registry, many charitable organizations have resorted to in-person solicitation on the street. Is this more or less invasive than telemarketing? I’m not sure. But I am very skeptical of the eleemosynary nature of these groups. Several of the popular in-person solicitors work for child poverty organizations. I’m not sure about the actual names of these charities, but “Children International” raised $1,275,675 and ended up paying the fundraiser $614,850; and “Save the Children Federation” only kept $997 of $71,811 raised. In dead last for effectiveness is the “Children’s Defense Fund,” which paid the fundraiser $29,676 for raising $2,480.

  • 4 Arrested in Animal Researcher Harassment

    The San Francisco Chronicle reports that four young people have been arrested on suspicion that they harassed UCB and UC Santa Cruz animal researchers under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.

    It is clear from the reporting that law enforcement is taking this issue seriously. The FBI and seven other law enforcement agencies were involved, and effort was coordinated through the Joint Terrorism Task Force. From the press release and reporting, it looks as though agents were following these activists in public places, and filmed them using publicly-available computer terminals. Even DNA was used to link items in a car used to flee from a harassment incident to the suspects arrested.

    The FBI’s press release alleges the following harassment:

    On Sunday, October 21, 2007 a group of approximately twenty people, including Mr. Buddenberg, Mr. Pope, and Ms. Stumpo, demonstrated outside a University of California Berkeley professor’s personal residence in El Cerrito, California. The group, some wearing bandanas to hide their faces, trespassed on his front yard, chanted slogans, and accused him of being a murderer because of his use of animals in research. The professor told police he was afraid, and felt harassed and intimidated by the extremists.

    On Sunday, January 27, 2008, a group of approximately eleven individuals, including Mr. Buddenberg, Mr. Pope, Ms. Stumpo, and Ms. Khajavi, demonstrated outside the private residences of several University of California Berkeley researchers over the course of the day. At each residence, extremists dressed generally in all black clothing and wearing bandanas to hide their faces marched, chanted, and chalked defamatory comments on the public sidewalks in front of the residences. One of the researchers informed authorities he had been previously harassed and the incident had caused him to fear for his health and safety.

    On February 24, 2008, five to six individuals including Mr. Pope, Ms. Stumpo, and Ms. Khajavi, attempted to forcibly enter the private home of a University of California researcher in Santa Cruz. When her husband opened the door, a struggle ensued and he was hit by an object. As the individuals fled, one yelled, “We’re gonna get you.” The professor and her husband both told the FBI they were terrified by the incident.

    On July 29, 2008, a stack of flyers titled “Murderers and torturers alive & well in Santa Cruz July 2008 edition” was found at the Café Pergolesi in Santa Cruz. The fliers listed the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of several University of California researchers and stated “animal abusers everywhere beware we know where you live we know where you work we will never back down until you end your abuse.” The investigation connected Mr. Buddenberg, Mr. Pope, and Ms. Stumpo to the production and distribution of the fliers. Distribution of the fliers preceded two firebomb attacks outside researchers’ Santa Cruz homes, both of which are still under investigation by the FBI.

    I’m willing to bet that local and federal police have people in every one of the area animal rights groups, in light of this pattern of harassment. This effort is likely to deflate this type of criminal behavior, because violations of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act can result in up to 5 years in prison. Whether guilty or innocent, a federal investigation and prosecution will turn one’s life upside down. And if guilty, the government will be seeking maximum prison stays.

  • Bank Secrecy on Life Support

    If you are socking money away in offshore banks, pay attention to this man’s expression. He’s saying, you’re screwed.

    Yes, taxpaying citizens, you can rejoice, because tax cheats across the country are having panic attacks. They’re thinking about refiling their tax returns, or going to the IRS to beg forgiveness with a check to cover past taxes and potential fines. Some are evening thinking about sailing away from this great country. Good riddance.

    As part of a 9/11 trend that requires banks to collect more information about their clients, and the fact that our government needs money, bank secrecy is on life support. Governments are willing to share information nowadays, and as the Times reports, the US government is going after 52,000 customers of UBS bank. (If you’re a customer, call your lawyer, today.)

    When rich and powerful people have their privacy invaded, it oftentimes results in new privacy laws. Maybe the long-term result of this will be less privacy for the ultra tax cheating rich, and more for us. Maybe.

  • The DC Circuit Gets Privacy, and So Do Your Phone Records

    I’m very pleased with today’s decision from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals on recently-strengthened privacy protections for phone records. The short history goes something like this: the FCC created strong opt-in (affirmative consent) provisions for the sharing of phone records (who calls whom, for how long, etc). In 1996, the 10th Circuit held that the restrictions violated the First Amendment rights of companies that wanted to sell this data to marketers. Thus, the FCC relaxed the standard to opt-out, meaning that you had to take affirmative action to stop your phone records from being sold.

    Did you know that the burden was upon you? Probably not! That’s why in 2005, I petitioned the FCC to reestablish stronger privacy protections, because all sorts of investigation companies were pretexting and obtaining phone records for perverts, stalkers, etc. The FCC opened a rulemaking and reestablished opt-in protections for phone records again. The industry sued, arguing that the First Amendment barred opt-in protections. Today the DC Circuit rejected the industry’s argument, holding that the FCC had sufficient justification for the heightened protections.

    But what’s more important is that the DC Circuit’s opinion “gets” privacy. Many courts conceive of privacy as a way to shield oneself from embarrassment. The DC Circuit disagreed, writing, “There is a good deal more to privacy than that. It is widely accepted that privacy deals with determining for oneself when, how and to whom personal information will be disclosed to others. See Daniel J. Solove, Conceptualizing Privacy, 90 CAL. L. REV. 1087, 1109-10 (2002).”

    Further, “…the carrier’s sharing of customer information with a joint venturer or an independent contractor without the customer’s consent is itself an invasion of the customer’s privacy – the very harm the regulation targets. In addition, common sense supports the Commission’s determination that the risk of unauthorized disclosure of customer information increases with the number of entities possessing it. The Commission therefore reasonably concluded that an opt-in consent requirement directly and materially advanced the interests in protecting customer privacy and in ensuring customer control over the information.”

    Wow! In privacy law, courts are often wedded to waiting for some type of harm to arise, such as unwanted telemarketing calls. They rarely get the idea that it is the data sharing itself that is the problem, and that privacy is about how personal data is controlled. Good job, Judge Randolph. Now the burden won’t be upon you to shield your phone records from sale to marketers!

  • Let the Bread and Circuses Continue!

    Obama has delayed am important political risk: he’s pushed back the DTV transition. If the televisions stopped working on February 17th, we would probably have an impeachment trial (as soon as the televisions were back on again).

  • Popular Woo Mongers Bankrupt…in Berkeley!

    The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Elephant Pharmacy, a “holistic” drug store has closed and will file for bankruptcy. Why should you care? Elephant was an upscale store based in the Bay Area, the epicenter for wooishness. If this type of business fails here, how well will woo do elsewhere?

    There’s something to be said for the idea that perhaps people know that woo doesn’t work, and maybe they cut back when the economy goes bad. Could the popularity of alternative medicine be a reflection of economic exuberance? Will individuals act more rationally when they have less money to spend?

    The comments on the Chronicle site are fun to read. Gives you an idea of the atmosphere here on alternative medicines.

  • MPR on Identity Theft

    I’ll be on Minnesota Public Radio this morning with LA Times consumer reporter David Lazarus, talking about identity theft. Here’s the preview and I’ll post the stream later. I’m going to be talking about my recent articles on identity theft: Identity Theft: Making the Known Unknowns Known and Towards a Market for Bank Safety.

  • Let's Just Hope There's No Lead in Your Toys Until 2010

    The toy companies that moved their production to China in order to save money apparently didn’t calculate the full costs of offshoring. Testing their products for lead is just too expensive, they argue. They have successfully lobbied to delay lead testing rules for children’s toys. Joseph Pereira and Melanie Trottman of the Journal report:

    Under pressure from manufacturers, federal regulators have postponed for one year certain testing requirements for lead and other toxic substances in toys and other children’s products.

    But unless Congress acts, retailers and manufacturers still won’t be allowed to sell products that don’t comply with tougher lead standards that are set to take effect on Feb. 10. “Congress will need to address that issue — the CPSC cannot,” Nancy Nord, acting chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, said in a statement.

    The stay allows manufacturers, which have been hit hard by the recession, to put off costly product testing for levels of lead, used to stabilize the plastic in products, and phthalates, which are chemicals used to soften plastic. The testing rules were supposed to have taken effect on Feb. 10 as well.

    So, let’s just hope that there’s no lead in the toys you buy your kids in the next year. Oops, wait a minute. There is lead in them. All you have to do is test to find it:

    Friday, the Center for Environmental Health, an advocacy group in Oakland, Calif., said it found several Valentine’s Day stuffed-animal toys sold by Rite Aid Corp. and Longs Drugs, a unit of CVS Caremark Corp., with lead exceeding the new national standards that take effect on Feb. 10. The lead levels found in one of the stuffed-animal toys were more than 15 times the new federal limit, the Center for Environmental Health said. “There should be something to back up a claim that the products are safe, but without testing and certification there’s no assurance,” said Charles Margulis, a spokesman for the group.

  • SF Chron: Ignore the Anti-Abortion Protestors

    In good Denialism blog form, the San Francisco Chronicle’s C. W. Nevius has urged readers to just ignore this week’s anti-abortion protest in San Francisco. He makes a good point:

    This is the fifth year in San Francisco for the “Walk for Life.” Bolstered by supporters who are bused in from all over – this year’s bus schedule lists departures from Yuba City, Bakersfield, Fresno, Reno, Clovis and Chico, among other cities – the anti-abortion group stages a march in liberal San Francisco and then expresses shock and disappointment when they are jeered and booed.

    It’s a scam and a setup. Nothing gets media attention like two groups facing off against each other. And, frankly, on the 36th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the anti-abortion groups are becoming a tired story. They claim huge numbers for this walk – their estimate last year was 25,000 walkers, although The Chronicle story had the total at 10,000 – but there isn’t much of a news hook unless there’s some controversy. They’d probably get more people if they marched in Indiana, but in San Francisco they can garner much more publicity.

    Amen! Stay inside on this Bay Area rainy day!

    A blog note: I apologize for the sparse blogging on Denialism Blog. The semester has just started for me, and I am teaching a new course that is taking a huge amount of time. MarkH is flying around the country interviewing. This week he was in San Francisco, where instead of blogging, we ate at Chapeau and the Slanted Door, and went to the gun show. Yes, the gun show. It was hilarious. We bought beef jerky there, considered getting a crossbow to shoot some Ligers, and stocked up on dental tools and compasses for survival post apocalypse.