By Peter Ward April 29, 2016
Nebraska Suing its Sick and Poor
Welcome to Nebraska state sign. ©Jimmy Emerson, DVM
Nebraska collection agencies are suing poor, sick people in the tens of thousands, a joint investigation by ProPublica and The Daily Beast published on Thursday has found.
About 79,000 debt collection lawsuits were filed in Nebraska courts in 2013 alone, according to ProPublica’s analysis. In New Mexico, a state with a similar population of around 2 million, but where income is lower and poverty is higher, about 30,000 suits were filed.
The reason for the difference is simple: it’s cheaper to sue someone in Nebraska than it is in New Mexico. In Nebraska the cost to file a lawsuit is $45, much cheaper than New Mexico where costs start at $77.
Debts from health care costs can result in litigation anywhere, but lawsuits usually come from hospitals. In Nebraska, almost all of the suits are brought by local debt collection agencies, pursuing debts on behalf of the healthcare providers.
Credit Management Services, a debt collector in Nebraska, filed more suits in 2013 than the rest of the state’s collection agencies combined. Between 2008 and the end of 2014, CMS seized at least $88 million from wages and bank accounts of Nebraskans, according to court data analyzed by ProPublica.
In one case CMS emptied a debtor’s bank account 11 times over two years, despite the fact that, in all but three of the instances, the debtor had under $100. “I resent the stereotype that these are not hard-working people” said Katherine Owen, managing attorney in Legal Aid of Nebraska’s Omaha office. “Truly the majority of them simply cannot afford it. That’s it.”
Trump, Litigation Magnet
Donald Trump ©Michael Vadon
Billionaire Donald Trump, the overwhelming favorite to win the Republican nomination for President, has not surprisingly come under scrutiny for many of his business practices.
This week, Bloomberg published an interactive detailing all of the times Trump and his companies have been involved in federal lawsuits. Some 72 federal cases have stacked up against Trump personally since 2000, but his companies have been sued or have sued someone else at least 1,300 times over the same time decade and a half, Bloomberg’s analysis shows.
The majority of those 1,300 cases addressed mundane complaints, like a patron of one of Trump’s businesses tripping and falling, or one of his casinos suing over a gambling debt. Bloomberg set those cases aside and focused on 203 cases involving more substantial claims brought against or by Trump and his companies.
User can click on each of 203 boxes to get details of an individual case. Trump has been sued numerous times by unhappy condo buyers, and by students at his Trump University. Trump also sued comedian Bill Maher over a $5 million bet. The lawsuits are also organized by the year in which they were filed, showing Trump’s litigation activity spiked during the recession in 2008 and 2009.
The final graph shows the majority of the 203 cases involved Trump’s real estate business, followed by his golf clubs and resorts, and employment/labor disputes. Trump has also been involved in three suits stemming from his presidential campaign.
$70m Counterfeit Money Ring Busted
Money. ©
Money
How do you stop a counterfeit money ring from pumping $70 million worth of fake bills into the U.S. economy? A feature in Bloomberg Businessweek, published on Wednesday, recounts the story of the pursuit and capture of a multinational gang whose fake bills are still in circulation.
The article focuses on a particular line of counterfeit bills, labeled the ‘Russian-Israelis’ by Secret Service agents investigating them, and identifiable by the number 77 on the bottom right corner.
Agent Adam Gaab received a break in the case in 2012, when he tracked down a man using the counterfeit bills who told him he’d bought $30,000 in fake $100 bills for 45c on the dollar. He’d bought the bills from a friend and the friend’s cousin. The Secret Service placed the two counterfeit dealers under surveillance, and were led up the food chain of the criminal conspiracy.
The Secret Service surveillance team next followed two Uzbekistan-born men, which led the them to the mastermind of the operation, an Israeli man named Itzhak Loz.
In May 2014, days before Loz was scheduled to return to Israel, agents raided the warehouse where he’d been printing the counterfeit currency. Loz was sentenced to 15 years in prison and all of the other conspirators received some prison time, as well.
‘Peak iPhone’ Explained
Shares in Apple closed down 6.3% on Wednesday, wiping off about $36 billion in market capitalization, a day after the company reported its first ever decline in iPhone sales.
Apple also reported its first drop in revenue in a decade, and sales in China, it’s second most important market, fell 26%. This has led to declarations of ‘peak iPhone’. Analysts believe that the company is already under pressure to ensure its next smartphone, the iPhone7, delivers significant new features to reverse the slump.
“If iPhone 7 doesn’t surprise with meaningful new useful features, we worry that consumers won’t upgrade,” Macquarie analyst Ben Schachter wrote in a note to clients. Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 7 in September.
The new iPhone is rumored to be waterproof, have a force touch home button and feature wireless headphones, but analysts question whether this will be enough to persuade users to upgrade or switch from Android-based phones.
On Thursday Apple rolled out CareKit, a toolkit for app developers to create health apps for the iPhone, but Apple might need bigger ideas and more ambitious products to prolong its reign as the world’s most valuable company.
This Week’s Top Headlines
Zuckerberg Borrows Google Tactic in Splitting Stock for Control – Joseph Ciolli, Bloomberg News
Apple plunges after earnings, wiping out $46B in market cap – Fred Imbert, CNBC
Yahoo’s loudest critic, Starboard Value, is now on the tech company’s board – Renae Merle, Washington Post
Chobani millionaires: employees could split 10% of yogurt company windfall – Sam Thielman, The Guardian
Twitter shares plunge a day after weak earnings report – David Pierson – LA Times
US Fed keeps interest rates on hold – BBC
Comcast to Buy DreamWorks for $3.8 Billion – Anne Steele, Ben Fritz, Dana Mattioli – The Wall Street Journal
U.S. Economy Grew 0.5% in First Quarter, Slowest Pace in 2 Years – Nelson D. Schwartz – The New York Times
Viacom’s Paramount Pictures suffers $136-million operating loss – Meg James, LA Times
Abbott to Buy St. Jude Medical in Deal Valued at About $25 Billion – Michelle Cortez, Bloomberg News
