Academics get paid by financial firms to testify against Dodd-Frank regulations. What’s wrong with this picture?
Professor Todd Zywicki is vying to be the toughest critic of the
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the new agency set up by the
landmark Dodd-Frank financial reform law to monitor predatory lending
practices. In research papers and speeches, Zywicki not only routinely
slams the CFPB’s attempts to regulate bank overdraft fees and payday
lenders; he depicts the agency as a “parochial” bureaucracy that is
“guaranteed to run off the rails.” He has also become one of the leading
detractors of the CFPB’s primary architect, Elizabeth Warren,
questioning her seminal research on medical bankruptcies and slamming
her for once claiming Native American heritage to gain “an edge in
hiring.”
Zywicki’s withering arguments against financial reform have earned him guest columns in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times and on The New York Times’s
website. Lobbyists representing the largest consumer finance companies
in the country have cited his writings in letters to regulators, and the
number of times he has testified before Congress is prominently
displayed on his academic website at the George Mason University School
of Law.
Read on...
Your resource for news, research, opinion and comment in the world of Criminology and Criminal Justice, brought to you by the Criminology Library, Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto
Showing posts with label propaganda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label propaganda. Show all posts
More Fallout From Citizens United: Corporations Granted More Power to Propagandize to Americans
The controversial 2010 Supreme Court ruling did not just affect corporate "speech" in elections.
Tamara Piety is a constitutional law professor and dean at University of Tulsa’s College of Law. Her latest book, Brandishing The First Amendment: Commercial Expression in America, describes how federal courts have aggressively and inappropriately expanded the First Amendment rights of for-profit corporations in recent decades.
Tamara Piety is a constitutional law professor and dean at University of Tulsa’s College of Law. Her latest book, Brandishing The First Amendment: Commercial Expression in America, describes how federal courts have aggressively and inappropriately expanded the First Amendment rights of for-profit corporations in recent decades.
The book starts with a
striking assertion, that if the government cannot regulate corporate
speech then it cannot regulate commerce, especially in our media-driven
world. Piety writes that the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United
ruling, which deregulated corporate political speech, also will make it
harder for the government to protect public interests because corporate
rights to say anything is ascendant in the federal judiciary.
Steven Rosenfeld interviewed Piety about Citizens United's reach beyond the electoral arena. Below is a slightly edited transcript.
Steven Rosenfeld: Are we talking about advertising or does it go deeper than that?
Cheerleading for Monsanto? The Shocking Lack of Difference Between Oxford University Press and Fox News
Why is an esteemed academic press publishing books that lack even a basic citation of sources?
Eighteen months ago I read a book that changed my life. Yeah, yeah, I know... sounds corny. But it's not what you think. This book changed my life not because of what it said but because of what it didn't say
Eighteen months ago I read a book that changed my life. Yeah, yeah, I know... sounds corny. But it's not what you think. This book changed my life not because of what it said but because of what it didn't say
On a nothing-special summer afternoon in 2010, I sat in the Cambridge Public Library preparing a speech on something I'd been studying for decades. I plugged "world hunger" into the library's computer. Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know popped up.
Perfect, I thought. I knew I would have differences with the book because I'd just read a critique of the views of its author, Robert Paarlberg, by my daughter Anna Lappé on the Foreign Policy website. But I'm always eager to know how those with whom I disagree make their case. Noticing that Food Politics was published by Oxford University Press, I felt confident I could count on it being a credibly argued and sourced counterpoint.
So I began reading.
"I couldn't believe my eyes" doesn't do justice to the shock I experienced.
The New Canada: Fomenting Fear at Home and Abroad
Why base policy on facts and evidence when you can exploit fear instead? It doesn’t take a psychologist to know that fear is a much more powerful motivator than boring old rational argument. Political scientists have long studied the use of fear-based appeals as techniques that “entrepreneurial” politicians may use to mobilize support. The Harper government seems to understand this intuitively, based on the comments of senior ministers this week, both at home and abroad.
Imagine a split screen image. On the one side is Vic Toews, Canada’s Minister of Public Safety, testifying Wednesday before a Senate committee on the government’s omnibus crime bill.
During the 2011 election campaign, the Conservatives promised to make Canada a place in which “law abiding” folks “don’t have to worry when they go to bed at night; where they don’t have to look over their shoulders as they walk down the street.” However, the tough-on-crime agenda ran into an awkward fact: Canada’s crime rate had been falling for years. According to Statistics Canada, police-reported crime continued declining in 2010 (the last year for which statistics are available) and reached its lowest level since 1973.
New Terror Alerts Coincide With Push to Renew the Patriot Act
By Jeralyn, Section War on Terror
We have vague terror threats guaranteed to strike fear in the heart of every American because they reference football stadiums, hotels, and mass transit. We have President Obama today calling for a renewal of expiring Patriot Provisions.
The FBI says:
"Nothing in the bulletins references the current investigation," a Federal Bureau of Investigation issued spokesman said Tuesday. Investigators still don't have specific evidence indicating an imminent threat to particular targets in the alleged plot, federal officials said.
That hasn't stopped Republicans from claiming: [More...]
Republicans said now isn't the time to limit the government's powers. The investigation in New York and Colorado is a reminder that "the threat to the homeland is very real," Sen. Kit Bond said in an interview Tuesday. "Tying the hands of our terror-fighters is not what we should be doing now." The current law contains ample privacy and civil liberties protections, the Missouri Republican said.
Looks like the George Bush/Dick Cheney playbook is still in effect. Tom
Oh Canada
by digby
Conservative violence seems to be on the rise everywhere:
Toronto police patrolled a midtown area overnight, after vandals cut brake lines on at least 10 cars parked at homes with Liberal election signs on their lawns.
"We're investigating. Officers are paying special attention to the designated area and we take this very seriously," Staff-Sgt. Shawn Meloche, from 53 Division, said last night. "This is a danger to life as well as to property. Regardless of the motivation – and there appears to be a connection (to the signs) – this is a public safety issue."
Read Digby's take on the election vandalism in Toronto. Digby is the author of the progressive blog Hullabaloo. Tom
Conservative violence seems to be on the rise everywhere:
Toronto police patrolled a midtown area overnight, after vandals cut brake lines on at least 10 cars parked at homes with Liberal election signs on their lawns.
"We're investigating. Officers are paying special attention to the designated area and we take this very seriously," Staff-Sgt. Shawn Meloche, from 53 Division, said last night. "This is a danger to life as well as to property. Regardless of the motivation – and there appears to be a connection (to the signs) – this is a public safety issue."
Read Digby's take on the election vandalism in Toronto. Digby is the author of the progressive blog Hullabaloo. Tom
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)