I don't want to justify or forgive US meddling in South American states- but to claim that how fucked up South America is, is the fault of the US is patently absurd.
It's not entirely the fault of the US, but it's pretty clear that the US did significantly contribute to the situation.
And a reminder, it took guns to get the British to get the message, and it may take the same for these countries.
It might, but keep in mind it won't necessarily work. Britain had a relatively liberal culture: it tolerated self-government, dissent and challenge to authority to a certain extent and that enabled the American Revolution movement to start coordinating and grow.
It's not a given that the American Revolution would have worked as well against a more ruthless and authoritarian regime cracking down hard against it early and fast. Brutal crackdowns might have prevented establishing the kind of coordination that was crucial to lead to a successful revolution.
Basically, it's true that it's important that the people take up arms in some situations if they want change, but depending on the situation and whom they are facing it doesn't mean they are going to win.
It seems, to my non lawyer view, the question is if the EPA establish label requirements, are states precluded from adding additional requirements via state laws? I would think, as a states rights issue, unless Federal laws specifically prohibited it they should be free to add requirements. SCOTUS may feel otherwise.
The question is also whether states can impose warnings that are not supported by solid scientific consensus. Parts of California's Prop 65 has been ruled unconstitutional in Federal District Court for this reason, see California Chamber of Commerce v. Rob Bonta:
The Court finds that the Prop 65 warnings for dietary acrylamide are misleading and controversial as they state that dietary acrylamide is carcinogenic to humans despite vigorous scientific debate concerning that conclusion and compel CalChamber’s members to espouse that view despite their disagreement.
Wouldn't unreliable debtors also be qualified for credit but just a lot lower limit?
That would also happen. Think of the interest rate as how much risk the creditor is willing to work with: lower the interest and the creditor will have to become more selective, lowering limits and denying more debtors than before.
If the CC interest has always been capped at 10%, what would have been my chances to build enough credit to buy that home?
That's difficult to say, maybe you would have been denied credit and you would have had to find a different solution. Said that, there are other options to provide affordable credit but they typical require state intervention to cover the risk outside of free-market economics.
Take your own home as example: if you bought it with a mortgage in the US part of the risk of that mortgage is covered by the Federal Reserve acting as "lender of last resort". Without that backstop provided by the government, you might have been denied a mortgage or it would have only be accepted at a much higher interest rate.
the ACA made the insurance world somewhat regulatable in that it became mandatory. Credit cards and banking are not forced on us by law.
Neither is an utility technically, but they are effectively considered a necessity for a normal life. I'd argue banking services have also effectively become a necessity for a normal life for most people.
The Supreme Court upheld profit caps for utilities. I agree the case is much weaker for banking or Credit Cards, but it's not non-existent.
I am pretty sure a company cannot have their profit margin mandated in the United States. That is unconstitutional.
Rate-of-return limits and similar constructs are not new in the US, although they typically apply in particular circumstances with high public interest, e.g. utilities or insurance. The Supreme Court upheld them in many occasions.
As example, the Affordable Care Act limits profits of medical insurance at an 80/20 Medical Loss Ratio, which means only a capped 20% of the premiums can be used to cover administrative costs and profits, the remaining 80% needs to be used to pay for medical claims.
For a credit card company there is no precedent as far as I know, but I think there would be enough public interest to support a profit cap.
So you're telling me all those with good credit don't get those 19%-21% CC rates but instead get nice low rates? LOL
Those with excellent credit score can get lower interest rates, but also the better the credit score the more likely they will pay back the money before the interest rate kicks in as that's the more financially sound thing to do, so for them the interest rate is effectively irrelevant.
Furthermore, those with good credit score can decide to opt for a credit card with higher interest but also better benefits. Since they are not really affected by the interest, they can reap the benefits for free.
Some banks issuing the credit make up to 50% of their revenue on this interest (43-56%). JP Morgan is afraid of losing this revenue stream, as are all banks.
Then the solution is not to cap the interest rate, but to cap the profit margins.
Note that the concept already exists e.g. in some insurance regulations, with various degrees of success depending on how many loopholes they keep open and how good the enforcement is.
My little to none knowledge on economy is probably gonna prohibit me from speaking on that part... but I can't imagine how it backfires on the consumers. Other than the fact that people pay less interests and can pay off more quickly, making the monthly payment smaller, they spend more I guess. Can anybody think of any other reason?
The interest is only in part profits for the creditor: it also covers the risk of the debtor defaulting. Not all debtors will pay back the money and the creditor will not always be able to recoup the money lent e.g. through repossession. This means as a creditor without interest you would end up losing money and go out of business. This means the higher the risk, the higher the interest rate.
Basically if you are considered a very bad debtor, a creditor might be still be willing to lend you money at a very high interest rate as it can cover the risk, but if the interest rate is capped lower, the creditor would just refuse to lend you money outright. Doing otherwise would mean losing money.
Basically without additional measures just capping the interest rate would make bad debtors ineligible for credit from credit card companies.
"LOL, I'm sure people would see that they now have a 10% cap on their CC interest rate and jump to one with an interest rate more than 10%.
If you are a high risk debtor you would not end up with a 10% capped CC: you would end up without CC altogether since creditors would deem the risk not adequately covered at a 10% cap.
That's what would drive these high risk debtors to "unregulated, more costly alternatives", since I doubt they suddenly would become eligible for better forms of credit, or not need the credit altogether.
Ubisoft can think up of many reasons to close a branch, it's up to the unionists to prove it was because of them getting too comfortable. Which they can't.
In Canada in this case the burden of proof would actually be on the employer:
(4) Where a complaint is made in writing pursuant to section 97 in respect of an alleged failure by an employer or any person acting on behalf of an employer to comply with subsection 94(3), the written complaint is itself evidence that such failure actually occurred and, if any party to the complaint proceedings alleges that such failure did not occur, the burden of proof thereof is on that party.
It's not how. It's why. If they can't prove intent, what sort of judgement do you think he'll get?
In Canada "lack of intent" is not a defense against defamation. The possible defenses are:
TL;DR: IMHO in Canada a defamation case against Google would be pretty solid.
Don't foregin (EU) countries have anything like CFIUS
The EU has the EU framework for investment screening and individual State Members also typically have their own national mechanism to review and potentially block acquisitions in some circumstances.
I realized I might have been unclear in my post: with "go with Exoscale" I don't mean merely selecting them as provider, I mean in the context of investing state money into them to let them build up their infrastructure.
There's an awful lot of European whining about their lack of data sovereignty. But, despite the fact that the solution is stupidly simple - European company's or socialist governments build European hyperscalers - no one seems to be actually attempting to address the issue.
Chinese companies built Chinese hyperscalers early and quickly. Why doesn't Europe have it's own hyperscalers? It seems to me that OVH could possibly do it with OVHCloud, and there is Exoscale. The Europeans could switch to these and build them out. But, all I hear is whining about America bad.
So, unless the Europeans are going to actually try to do something about it I really don't want to hear them whining about it. And, for the record, switching to a file syncing NAS and Libre Office is nothing at all like building a hyperscaler.
That's probably what is at least in part going to happen, but it's not as easy as it seems.
China has no issue in pouring whatever state aid they want to whatever company they want and have a much greater motivation to not rely on US infrastructure due to the hostility between the countries. The EU or EU State Members on the other side cannot just decide to e.g. "go with Exoscale" or whatever domestic provider because state aid in the EU is pretty strictly regulated: other companies would have the opportunity to sue such decision as Governments are not supposed to "pick winners", at least in normal circumstances.
What would need to happen first is for the EU to designate hyperscalers as a strategic industry, thus allowing an exception to the "state aid" regulations. I think there is broad consensus that the reliance on US infrastructure is an issue, but until recent times not that it's something that needs to be addressed urgently due to the relatively friendly relationship between US and EU and the existence of alternative measures that can mitigate and control risk.
In more recent times that "friendly relationship" seem to have gone south, so it's perfectly possible the EU will accelerate towards a strategy of independence in the future including putting into practice a coordinated EU-level strategic industry designation and investments in domestic providers.
"You must have an IQ of at least half a million." -- Popeye
