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571 points gausswho | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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pjmlp ◴[] No.44507998[source]
The consumer protection laws are so bad the other side of Atlantic.

Most European countries, have their own version of consumer protection agencies, usually any kind of complaint gets sorted out, even if takes a couple months.

If they fail for whatever reason, there is still the top European one.

Most of the time I read about FTC, it appears to side with the wrong guys.

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b00ty4breakfast ◴[] No.44508075[source]
neoliberal deregulation and regulatory capture, not necessarily in that order, has basically killed federal consumer protection in the US.
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fuzzy_biscuit ◴[] No.44508775[source]
I don't see the neoliberal deregulation you're talking about, so I'll bite.

Regulatory capture I have seen too often e.g. net neutrality getting killed by a Verizon cronie masquerading as a public servant in the FCC. However, from my perspective, it's been mostly conservative powers undoing consumer protections. Unless you mean liberalism in the more European sense, in which case I agree.

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1. HybridCurve ◴[] No.44510048[source]
The Asian Financial Crisis in 1997: deregulated capital flows allowed speculators to rapidly pull money out of countries like Thailand, causing their currencies to collapse. The IMF stepped in, but their 'rescue' packages demanded strict conditions- forced privatization, and further deregulation, which often made things worse. And let's not forget Black Wednesday, when speculators broke the Bank of England. This was called "a textbook case of a speculative attack enabled by capital mobility" which is a core neoliberal policy. Just like all politics: never trust the meaning or identity of something derived from it's headline, title, name, or label- those are always the first lies we are told.