Six years ago, the Federal Trade Commission went after a company that allegedly provided consumers with bad advice on how to consolidate and settle their debts. The FTC said this scam cost consumers over $8.9 million. We’ll assume that’s true.
Now, six years later, the FTC finally awarded those consumers relief — to the tune of about $37,000. It wasn’t really the FTC’s fault. The people they went after were bankrupt, and this was all the Commission could get from the bankruptcy trustee. Still, let’s stop to consider how much worse off “consumers” would be if the FTC hadn’t been there to step in and, several years after their initial dealings with some company, give 360 people refund checks for $104.69 each. If that doesn’t justify keeping a multi-million dollar bureaucracy with unlimited police powers in existence, I don’t know what does.
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Come now. It is the principle of the issue. Those who have their money stolen from them by fraudsters (and again we are assuming this is true) deserve to have as much of it as possible returned, even if this operation of returning operates at a loss. Would anyone here allow an injustice stand for reasons of economic efficiency?
“Those who have their money stolen from them by fraudsters (and again we are assuming this is true) deserve to have as much of it as possible returned.”
Great. Therefore, the FTC and the government should be abolished and taxpayers deserve to have as much of their money returned as possible.
“Would anyone here allow an injustice stand for reasons of economic efficiency?”
Yes, if the “operation of returning” is more of a scam than the scam it’s investigating.
are some taxpayers ok with the taxes they pay?
No, of course not. I would never want to allow an injustice to stand. But I would sure as hell find a more capable and more efficient agent to correct the injustice on my behalf. If I were allowed to, that is.
It also requires the understanding that in many cases, fraud like this are impossible to recover from. Those resources are gone and liquidation of all the perpetrator owns will never come close to recovery. That’s something the FTC doesn’t grasp.
I like how the SEC got me a few pennies from my WorldCom stock.
Stocks are a waste unless you can get a majority stake and liquidate the company assets and put the proceeds into your personal bank account.
And how much did the investigation cost? I wouldn’t be surprised if it was more than $8.9 million. Who are the real scam artists? Even if it was more than $37,000, they would have been better off just giving the victims the investigation money and not doing the investigation.
Lawyers, in general, are usually forthright in admitting that most, if not all, of gov’t statutes and executive agency regulations are “Job security” for their class. This extends from the drafting of the rules, through the interpretation and implementation of these rules, and on to the enforcement and litigation over the application of the rules.
That the victims were granted even 0.41% of their losses is seen as a great success for “justice”, because, after all, entire teams of attorneys were able to be employed for 6 years in just this one action. And if you have problems with the FTC rules, you can always appeal to these lawyers to use more resources to re-write, re-define, re-negotiate, and re-litigate how the FTC works.
To summon Smedley, (State monopoly) Law is a racket.
Lawyers only exist because we have lawyers. Get rid of the lawyers and we won’t need them anymore.
Beautifully said.
I respectfully disagree – just as there is a need for police and school teachers outside of the state employ, there is also a market for those who can argue and negotiate on their behalf.
The profession of law is needed, but what lawyers have done to it through the heavy hand of state monopoly has made the modern version of the practice entirely self-supporting.
I am seriously going to start using all of that! Thank you so much, I am not even kidding! There is nothing that I hate more than coming up with content all the time to barely keep our real estate blog up. It’s just so time consuming – so thanks again!
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