My daughter Mona is great at making salads. As part of a large farm family, she’s used to cooking for crowds. When she comes to visit, as she did for my July Fourth party, she always asks me to get out the large bowls. Then she peruses her vegetarian cookbooks, which she brings with her, and prepares her latest salad success.
Thursday I wrote about how more than 50 percent of inflation is caused by corporate price gouging and wondered why politicians don’t talk about it and news organizations don’t cover it. Friday I was going to write about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau suing Acima and its former chief executive officer Aaron Allred for illegal lending activities.
It’s amazing that corporate price gouging gets such little attention. It’s responsible for more than 50 percent of inflation that’s causing consumers so much stress and hardship. However, it gets little publicity. Accountable.US, a consumer watchdog group, reports lots of information on this, but I seldom see it in the press. Here are a few examples:
What’s surveillance pricing? It’s when a company looks at information about you and sets the price of an item or service you want to buy based on that information. The FTC issued orders to eight companies offering surveillance pricing. It wants to know about the possible impacts these practices have on privacy, competition, and consumer protection.
The National Association of Realtors settlement of a class action lawsuit, scheduled to be carried out by August 17, requires realtors to obtain buyer signatures on home buyer contracts. The $418 million settlement did away with the traditional agent’s commission of 5-6 percent, which should lead to more negotiation, more competition, and lower costs.
For most summers, my daughter Lisa, who lives in Madrid, visits me with her kids, Rafa and Cecilia. Although the visits are shorter now that the kids are older and want to spend more time with their friends, we had a great time. Fun times included a barbecue, swimming, walking in an arboretum and parks, dining out, and a July Fourth celebration.
As the Biden administration works to curb junk fees, big banks keep charging the fees while earning record profits and some even want to increase the fees. CitiGroup, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. – three big banks that continue to charge junk fees – announced Friday more than $26 billion in combined second quarter earnings.
Although I’m used to the fact that customer service these days is abysmal, my experiences on a hot day Monday about made my head explode. I’m shopping for a new garden shed. I don’t have a very big space so I’m looking for a metal shed 4 feet by 6 feet. I like blue, so after lots of research, I headed off to Lowe’s with my contractor.
Buying a used car instead of a new one will probably save you money. However, finding, researching, and negotiating to buy a used car online can be difficult. Online sellers advertise they can make car purchases cheaper and easier, but some of them use tactics that could end up costing you time and money.
