Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Fred Clark on the Cost of Being Poor

slacktivist: Same to you, buddy writes a great rant about the costs of being poor

Last year, U.S. banks collected about $36 billion in overdraft protection fees. This year, they expect to transfer about $38.5 billion out of customers' accounts in the form of such fees.

$38.5 billion. $105 million every day. $4.4 million every hour. $73,250 every minute. More than $1,200 a second. Transferred directly from the poor to the rich.

$38.5 billion.

And by the time he says,

The point here, I suppose, is that check-cashing fees may be an exploitative scam run by sleazeballs, but that they may turn out to be a more prudent option for the working poor than the even-more exploitative scam run by the more mainstream, but sleazier sleazeballs of the banking industry.

… the banks look far more exploitatrive than Wal-Mart charging $3 to cash a check.

Posted in Econ & Money | 5 Comments

Email Snooping States Claim for Tortious Intrusion Upon Seclusion

Evan Brown at Internet Cases has a good writeup of Steinbach v. Village of Forest Park, No. 06-4215, 2009 WL 2605283 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 25, 2009) which holds that email snooping can be a tortious intrusion upon seclusion.

My e-home is my (cyber) castle.

Posted in Law: Privacy | 1 Comment

Fafblog Is Still Fafblog

Fafblog! the whole world's only source for Fafblog. finds the silver lining in an ugly cloud of bigotry at a health care town hall.

Unfortunately, the silver lining is this:

On the bright side, though, the Mayan zombie gods should wipe us all out in just a couple years

Posted in Health Care | 4 Comments

Academic Author Letter Opposing the Google Books Settlement (I Signed On)

I signed Pam Samuleson's marvelous Academic Author Letter setting out a number of flaws in the proposed Google Books settlement.

It's probably the best-drafted and most cogent group letter I've ever signed. And, wow, I'm in good company among the signatories.

Posted in Law: Copyright and DMCA | 1 Comment

I’ll Have Mine Rare

Amygdala explains why you might want to care about dysprosium, terbium, and neodymium.

I look forward to his discussion of scandium and yttrium.

Posted in Econ & Money | 3 Comments

Ros-Lehtinen’s Almost-Fair Health Care Survey

Congresswoman Ileanna Ros-Lehtinen is asking constituents to fill out her Health Care Survey Form.

I have to admit, it's less biased than I would have expected. But then my expectations were very low.

Nevertheless, there are a few good questions on there like if you support the public option, so if you live in Florida's 18th district, might as well fill it out.

Full text of the survey — with some comments — after the jump.

Continue reading

Posted in Health Care, Politics: FL-18 | 5 Comments