
texas insurer drops push to let homeowners forgo right to sue texas tribune. margarita: 




not many (probably) remember that the largely successful effort to gut tort laws around the country started in mid-80s by insurance companies, after they lost money in the early 1980s real estate boom/bust. not satisfied with the current tepid tort laws, they are at it again. 




and adam levitin via e-mail: 




i love that the arbitration is getting priced. this is a great example of what i<u+2019>ve tried to teach in contracts for years: the law only looks at the one-off contract. but the insurer doesn<u+2019>t give a shit about the individual contract. it<u+2019>s all actuarial tables. and that creates a total mismatch. the consumer is a one time player, while the insurer is a repeat player. the consumer will rationally value the arbitration clause at basically nothing (there<u+2019>s an optimism bias too<u+2013>no one gets married thinking that they<u+2019>re going to get divorced), because the odds of it being important are so low and there<u+2019>s only one contract. but because the insurer is doing multiple contracts, even low odds matter. as a result consumers will never properly price for arbitration clauses and the like. 




notice, btw, that the cfpb cannot stop this because it doesn<u+2019>t have authority over home insurance. that<u+2019>s all state level regulation. 




samsung recalls 2.8 million washing machines in u.s. over injury risk reuters. em: 




hey, look at the bright side <u+2013> at least the washers aren<u+2019>t bursting into flame! but, imagine a future where most new washers are connected to the interwebs <u+2013> were hackers to trigger such an excessive-vibration condition, it would be a rather eerie consumer-product analog of the us/israeli stuxnet hack of the iranian nuclear-program centrifuges. 




the descent of the left press: from if stone to the nation counterpunch 




class warfare 




antidote du jour. one of national geographic<u+2019>s nature photographs of the year , this one by zhayynn james . 




four zebras stand in the masai mara national preserve in kenya at the end of the day as the sun seeps through the clouds, lighting the sky a vibrant orange. see yesterday<u+2019>s links and antidote du jour here . 0 0 0 0 0 0 this entry was posted in links on
links 11/5/16 | naked capitalism
yves smith