On May 8, the biggest players in the American debt collection business traveled to Philadelphia to have a talk with Kathy Kraninger, the new director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. A day earlier, Kraninger's agency had introduced a slate of regulations ostensibly designed to curb the worst abuses in the notoriously predatory world of debt collection. But the proposal appalled consumer advocates; instead of reforming debt collection, the plan had transformed into an excuse to legalize a host of shady practices. read more
There are new concerns that the bowls used at Chipotle restaurants may be linked to cancer. The New Food Economy said it found the fiber bowls are exposed to chemicals that can lead to cancer. A study said the bowls are treated with PFAs that are also called forever chemicals. PFAs help the bowls hold hot, wet and greasy food. The Environmental Protection Agency said those compounds do not break down in the human body and can accumulate over time. The chemicals also seep into the soil as the bowls break down, leading to toxic compost. read more
Scene inside a Tucson City Council Meeting. Officials voted to put a "Sanctuary City" measure on the November ballot read more
BACKGROUND: A federal assault weapons ban has been proposed as a way to reduce mass shootings in the United States. The Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 made the manufacture and civilian use of a defined set of automatic and semiautomatic weapons and large capacity magazines illegal. The ban expired in 2004. The period from 1994 to 2004 serves as a single-arm pre-post observational study to assess the effectiveness of this policy intervention. METHODS: Mass shooting data for 1981 to 2017 were obtained from three well-documented, referenced, and open-source sets of data, based on media reports. We calculated the yearly rates of mass shooting fatalities as a proportion of total firearm homicide deaths and per US population. We compared the 1994 to 2004 federal ban period to non-ban periods, using simple linear regression models for rates and a Poison model for counts with a year variable to control for trend. The relative effects of the ban period were estimated with odds ratios. read more
Ocasio-Cortez slammed back at the Senate majority leader after seeing the post, asking if McConnell is "paying for young men to practice groping & choking members of Congress w/ your payroll, or is this just the standard culture of #TeamMitch?" read more
I listened to everything Kudlow said:
1. Consumers are working. Yes they are, but wages, especially for the very bottom, are falling in real terms as wages fail to keep up with inflation indicating that wage growth is primarily going to the top. www.factcheck.org
2. People are saving more. Yes the 1% are banking all of their tax cuts. Still 45% of America can not handle a $400 car repair and 40% of America have no retirement savings. So yes overall savings are going up, but to paint that as Fat Nixon spreading prosperity to all of America is baloney.
"When you're 60-something years old and only have 1.6 years worth of living expenses to buttress your declining Social Security checks, life isn't going to be very leisurely. You'll probably be mad at the government for lying to you and mad at yourself for not saving more when you still had a chance.
The problem with averages is that averages distort reality. For example, the average household has a net worth of approximately $710,000. You and I know that this is impossible based on common sense. But simple math doesn't lie. Take the total household wealth in the US of $81.8 trillion (according to the Fed) and divide by 115,226,802 US households (according to the Census Bureau) and you get $710,000."
Fat Nixon is panicking that Gyna did not capitulate immediately.
American families are hurting far more than Fat Nixon is. $1,000 per family in higher prices that they can use their $20 tax refund to offset.
The Orange Lard Barge is a stupid person's idea of a smart person.