And This . . .

. . . benefits . . .

. . . me HOW???


(https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/technology/congress-moves-to-strike-internet-privacy-rules-from-obama-era.html?_r=0)
". . . Republican senators moved Thursday to dismantle landmark internet privacy protections for consumers in the first decisive strike against telecommunications and technology regulations created during the Obama administration, and a harbinger of further deregulation. . .The measure passed in a 50-to-48 vote largely along party lines. The House is expected to mirror the Senate’s action next week, followed by a signature from President Trump. . .The move means Verizon, Comcast or AT&T can continue tracking and sharing people’s browsing and app activity without permission, and it alarmed consumer advocates and Democratic lawmakers. They warned that broadband providers have the widest look into Americans’ online habits, and that without the rules, the companies would have more power to collect data on people and sell sensitive information. . ."

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Give and Take . . .

(from http://www.courant.com/entertainment/hc-winter-history-giftgiving,0,2002289.story)
By 1860, the New York Evening Post said Christmas in New York was an embarrassment of the riches that made holiday shopping more difficult and time-consuming. Most of December was spent preparing and shopping for Christmas.

The ``American,'' a journal published in 1887, asked: ``What is Christmas for? Not to enrich the shopkeepers.'' Instead, the journal argued that Christmas should be a time of worship, reunion and ``old- fashioned sports.''

Even before the 1800s, merchants were encouraging the nation's colonial culture to copy the aristocratic holiday observance of genteel gift-giving.

During the mid-1800s, entrepreneurs seized the opportunity to sell holiday trinkets and gifts in the streets, from carts and stalls. Visionaries of the modern consumer culture, from P.T. Barnum to R.H. Macy, knew how to sell Christmas to the middle-class consumer.

Children, in particular, liked this way of celebrating Christmas. It was around 1840 that children began to hang their stockings by the fireplace, according to the Connecticut Historical Society. About 20 years later, Santa became every child's hero with such 1860 stories as ``The Night Before Christmas.''

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Clown. . .

Are YOU lovin' it???

McDonald's was fined by a consumer protection agency in Brazil for targeting children in advertisements for  Happy Meals in the amount of 3.2 million reais (US $1.6 million). And though the amount may not make much of a dent in the fast food giant's pocketbook, the agency leveling the fine could issue additional citations should the firm persist in the offensive practices.

"There's no need to appeal as they do to children without the maturity or the rationality to enter the market as consumers," said an agency representative. The penalty is the latest in a series of increasingly aggressive tactics by Brazilian regulators, who recently have cracked down on large firms for perceived consumer abuses. In recent months, phone companies and private health plans have all been penalized for violation of consumers.

Here at home, a judge threw out a lawsuit against Happy Meal marketing. U.S. regulators have urged companies to voluntarily end food advertising to children unless they are promoting healthy fare, but typically, industry groups are putting up a fierce fight - Surprise! In calculated cooperation, McDonald's has added apples and reduced the amount of french fries in its children's Happy Meals, but insist on keeping the free toy. They also began listing calorie information on menus throughout the United States before the national rule requiring same.

(thanks to The American Journal of Transportation)

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Warren. . .

. . . not THAT one. . .

(from http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/elizabeth-warren-comes-out-swinging-banks-regulators.php by Sahil Kapur)
". . . Just two months into her new job as Massachusetts senator, the former consumer advocate has used her perch to publicize and rail against shady practices by financial institutions and what she views as leniency from the regulators tasked with overseeing them.

The latest example came last Thursday during a Banking Committee hearing, when Warren demanded answers from a panel of federal regulators as to why the multinational bank HSBC got off with a fine for money laundering for Mexican drug cartels — along with violating international sanctions against several countries, including Iran and Libya — when people caught with drugs go to jail for life.

“No one individual went to trial, no individual was banned from banking and there was no hearing to consider shutting down HSBC’s activities here in the United States,” Warren said. “So … what does it take? How many billions of dollars do you have to launder for drug lords and how many economic sanctions do you have to violate before someone will consider shutting down a financial institution like this?”. . . "

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Consumerproduchondria. . .

. . .  may well be the malady from which I suffer. . .I am a consumerproduchondriac. . .

 . . . a disease that is spread through the saliva of blututhious devisus (pictured above) when injected, unbeknownst to you, into your ear canal. Symptoms of the disease include the inability to make telephone contact with the person that you contact most, using the voice command feature.  All functions famously until the voice tells you, "calling mobile 1" and then nothing happens.

Consumerproduchondria can also be contracted through other consumer products, as I well know, and manifests itself in that the consumer product (or some specific function thereof) will, for some odd reason, work.

You know that it is consumerproduchondria specifically when you scour the manual that accompanies your product at purchase, and there is mention of nothing remotely resembling your situation to be found.  Identification of the disease becomes confirmed when you speak to a real customer service representative and they say, "I've never heard of that before."

The only remedy to this debilitating condition is a conscientious manufacturer with sympathetic customer service reps who will happily replace your item a little or no cost to you.  If you cannot locate the remedy at your local pharmacy, take two aspirin and call me in the morning.

 
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