A Liberal Blogger's Duty: Ron Howard's Viral

Funny or Die's Presidential Reunion from Will Ferrell

(via Mediaite)

Credit Cards, Chickens & Insurance Reform

The other day, I was participating in a liveblog of the Health Care Summit, when I realized that a good example of the pitfalls the President kept referring to in regards to allowing cross-border insurance purchases was the credit card industry and how it's now concentrated in South Dakota, so I tossed-in a quick comment with a link to one of my older posts about this phenomenon.

After the summit, I took a few minutes to link an article that I had been saving about how the new federal credit card regulations are expected to affect the industry in the least regulated state, but hadn't gotten around to blogging, so I added it to the old post without any comment.

Add to all this another article which has been in my queue, detailing some of the preparations Idaho is considering and Nevada's active courtship of the egg industry, all because tighter regulations will soon take effect in California and they both would like a piece of the pie.

Because every state is different and some may be more willing to bend to satisfy a short-term economic need, it's kind of easy to see why if cross-border insurance purchases are allowed and there's no minimum federal standard, the White House fears a "race to the bottom".

Scam Artist Spams Judge

Ubiquitous, late night, informercial staple Kevin Trudeau has been found in contempt by a Chicago area judge for the second time and forced to post a $50,000 bond, plus surrender his passport, while awaiting sentencing on at least one of the charges, next week.

In open court, U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman said that he'll likely require jail time and a fine because Mr. Trudeau bombarded his email with letters of support from his followers, some of which could be considered threatening and all of which are undergoing analysis by the U.S. Marshals Service in a first of its kind investigation.

Trudeau, who previously served two years on a 1991 conviction for credit card fraud, where he charged more than $122,000 to the cards of eleven customers from one of his prior schemes is currently awaiting final sentencing for this most recent act of contempt, and a previous conviction after he successfully appealed the judge's amended punishment for violating a 2004 court order.

After run-ins with the SEC, the FTC and eight states for pyramid schemes and selling products using false and misleading statements, Trudeau settled an action by the Federal Trade Commission in 2004, by paying a $2 million dollar fine and agreeing to a lifetime ban "from appearing in, producing, or disseminating future infomercials that advertise any type of product, service, or program to the public, except for truthful infomercials for informational publications".

In 2007, the FTC charged that some of the marketing statements for a book titled The Weight Loss Cure 'They' Don't Want You to Know About were misleading because its infomercial claimed that the weight loss program was something easy, consumers could do at home without exercise and would allow them to eat anything they want, while the actual publication outlined a complex plan with lifetime dietary restrictions and exercise requirements, daily injections of a growth hormone available only by prescription and regular colonics, which must be administered by a licensed practitioner.

Mr. Trudeau was found guilty of making "patently false" statements to sell his weight loss book, thus putting him in violation of the '04 order.

Initially, Judge Gettleman sentenced him to pay a fine of more than $5 million dollars and imposed a three year moratorium on appearing in any informercial for a product in which he holds an interest, but both Mr. Trudeau and the FTC asked him to reconsider the sentence. After less than a month's time, the judge decided to keep the three year moratorium, but upped the fine to more than $37 million dollars, which is what the Federal Trade Commission alleges Mr. Trudeau had received from the estimated 32,000 times the infomercial ran.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Mr. Trudeau's conviction last fall, but directed Judge Gettleman to do more fact-finding to justify the fine. In an attempt to sway the court, Mr. Trudeau reached out to his customers via email and through his website asking them to contact the judge, which caused his email account to become flooded.

This was not only a demonstrable inconvenience to the court, but it also violated the rules governing ex-parte communications.

And because you've most likely seen a Kevin Trudeau infomercial recently, while awaiting the appeal and fact-finding effort, he has been actively marketing Free Money "They" Don't Want You to Know About, a book published in 2009 and a product in which he holds an interest.

This guy will never quit.

Links

• Wikipedia
• Chicago Tribune
• Chicago Sun-Times
• FTC Linklist outlining the entire case

How Much Does Liquor Cost?

North Carolina is among the states that are looking at switching from government-run liquor stores to private enterprise, thus opening distribution to competition.

There's a lot of arguments to be made on both sides of the subject, but what may be interesting to consumers, no matter where they live is the factory-direct price of alcohol before taxes and the various markups.

In the following clip from WRAL, Kelcey Carlson describes the system adopted by North Carolina after prohibition. In her report, she also breaks down the price of several liquors to their per-bottle wholesale rate and in the text version, they and one other are charted per-case.

(If player fails to load, click post title)

Consumers Prepare to Grab Your Ankles

Last night, I linked to a profile of Terry Smiljanich of the Consumer Warning Network and embedded one of his videos.

In both the Dow Jones piece and the YouTube, Mr. Smiljanich came down very hard on South Dakota because they eliminated usury laws in 1980, which explains why so many people get credit card statements with a Sioux Falls return address.

This morning, we hear word that Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota has the backing of many prominent Senators to become chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, once Sen. Chris Dodd is out of office.

Usury Law & Banking Circumvention Explained

Al Lewis of Dow Jones Newswire profiles Terry Smiljanich, former U.S. Attorney and current Managing Editor of Consumer Warning Network about the history of usury laws, consumer interest and the strong language used in Mr. Smiljanich's latest video.



Update: Credit Rules Worry S.D. Banks