The US Supreme Court has just handed down a judgement in favor of all of the big corporations (link to official court opinion) and against consumers, that is, against you and me.
The case has to do with mandatory arbitration, which is a grievance-resolution process between corporations and their consumers. Big companies often write legal text into their contracts that you have to sign in order to get their service which states that if you ever have a problem with their products or service, that you waive your right to sue them through real courts, and can only seek resolution through mandatory arbitration.
You can think of mandatory arbitration as a court-like process that the company controls. Companies obviously love this because it means that their liability is even further limited, as their customers cannot take them before an impartial court, but rather only the overwhelmingly impartial "court" that sides with the company ALMOST 100% OF THE TIME! We all know that there seems to be an ever-increasing epidemic of lawsuits, many of them frivolous, but this ruling completely ties the hands of consumers, who were already at the whim and mercy of big companies when they decide to overcharge or not fulfill their side of the agreement.
In the case at hand, the company CompuCredit offered credit cards to consumers with bad credit, so bad that they probably could not get a credit card with anyone else. The card that CompuCredit offered had a credit limit of $300, but the bad part is that they deceptively included almost $300 in fees when the card was opened. So a consumer who was told that he would have a $300 credit line credit card was surprised to find after opening the card that they would be forced to pay almost the whole $300 up front before even being able to use the card for any purchases. CompuCredit was smart and made sure that the tiny legal type in the cardholder agreement stated that the holder of the card would waive all right to sue in a real court and would be bound to pursue any grievance through arbitration. Their ripped-off customers understandably got very angry, came together and filed suit against the company, but were rebuffed by the courts all the way up to the US Supreme Court, who essentially told the consumers to [this section edited out for decency].
What does this mean for you and me? Any big company that we do business with, for example banks, credit cards, cell phone companies, cable and internet companies, home builders, car dealerships, etc, can cheat us any way they like, and have a rigged "kangaroo court" process that basically guarantees that they will prevail over you.
I am no expert in legal precedents or the logic that the court used to reach it's almost-unanimous 8-1 decision, but common sense suggests that justice got trampled this time.
What can we do about it? The Court stated that its decision was based on current law, and specifically suggested that it could be changed by new legislature passed by Congress. Let's get some more of our friends informed about this issue so we can begin to pressure our lawmakers for reform.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Grains Are Bad For You - Eat Something Healthier
Contrary to the common knowledge of most current health experts, eating grains is detrimental to your health. How can this be possible, you may ask? To understand why, we need to take a look at a bit of the history of human evolution.
Humans have been evolving in their mostly-modern form for the past couple of million years. (Don't believe in evolution? You might want to reconsider that.) The science of evolution by natural selection explains how from one generation to the next, individual organisms who are able to survive and leave descendants do just that, while other individual organisms, who are unable to survive, or leave descendants, do not contribute to the next generation. Something that this process accomplishes over hundreds of thousands of generations is fine-tuning a species to survive in it's given environment, given that it's environmental conditions are relatively stable. This is the case for the last 2.4 million years of human and pre-human evolution. In this time, humans "grew up" as a species living as hunter-gatherers, and eating a diet of whatever plants and animals they could get their hands on to survive. Over those generations, our genes became fine-tuned to this diet, allowing our bodies to use the plant and animal nutrients to our optimal health and survival.
Now let's fast-forward to about 10,000 years ago, when the first humans began to practice agriculture. Agriculture was a great boon to humanity, as it allowed for the production of much more food, which in turn allowed for the growth in human population which has led to the birth of civilization. However, the downside of this introduction of novel foods was that it threw human nutrition off-balance. Our bodies had been fine-tuned for a completely non-grain diet, and then suddenly (in evolutionary terms) given a huge change in the type of nutrients that it was receiving. As a result, paleo-archaeologists can show how the health of populations suffered considerably as soon as grains were introduced. Specifically, the signs of malnutrition showed up as teeth and bones were weaker and more diseased, and people suddenly started growing several inches shorter. And this was when they were eating the very best kind of grains: all-natural, 100% organic, whole grains, the kind that the health experts want us all to eat!
Now some people claim that humans have somehow evolved in the last couple hundred generations to be able to thrive on grains. The difficult part of that logic is that the mechanics of gene mutation and subsequent natural selection need much, much more time than that to fine-tune the system. We are maybe able to accept grains a tiny bit better than our first ancestors, but we are still hundreds of thousands of generations away from them possibly developing into a health food (or until scientists find a way to rewrite our DNA for us!)
Today, eating grains, especially the refined ones, which are even worse than the original kinds, is leading our society down the path of obesity, heart disease, cancer and diabetes, as well as many other diseases. Processed food is killing us, and grain flour is the original processed food. Have you ever tried eating unprocessed wheat? You don't want to.
So what should we eat? For optimal health, we should eat a diet similar to our ancestors: plants like vegetables, fruits and nuts, and seafood and free-range animals. These give us all of the nutrients that we need in the way that our bodies are designed to utilize.
Grains are quite nutritionally deficient in comparison to our ancient diet. Ever noticed all of the nutrients that are in breakfast cereal? Those are factory chemicals that are added after-the-fact to try to boost the product's healthy street credibility. But I am not buying it, and neither should you.
You can read a bit more about this subject here or here.
And please check out some more articles about food and nutrition on our sister site, the Tipsaurus:
Don't Eat Fake Food
Cook Your Own Food
Eat Less Corn and its Derivatives
How to Pick a Perfect Pineapple Every Time
Humans have been evolving in their mostly-modern form for the past couple of million years. (Don't believe in evolution? You might want to reconsider that.) The science of evolution by natural selection explains how from one generation to the next, individual organisms who are able to survive and leave descendants do just that, while other individual organisms, who are unable to survive, or leave descendants, do not contribute to the next generation. Something that this process accomplishes over hundreds of thousands of generations is fine-tuning a species to survive in it's given environment, given that it's environmental conditions are relatively stable. This is the case for the last 2.4 million years of human and pre-human evolution. In this time, humans "grew up" as a species living as hunter-gatherers, and eating a diet of whatever plants and animals they could get their hands on to survive. Over those generations, our genes became fine-tuned to this diet, allowing our bodies to use the plant and animal nutrients to our optimal health and survival.
Now let's fast-forward to about 10,000 years ago, when the first humans began to practice agriculture. Agriculture was a great boon to humanity, as it allowed for the production of much more food, which in turn allowed for the growth in human population which has led to the birth of civilization. However, the downside of this introduction of novel foods was that it threw human nutrition off-balance. Our bodies had been fine-tuned for a completely non-grain diet, and then suddenly (in evolutionary terms) given a huge change in the type of nutrients that it was receiving. As a result, paleo-archaeologists can show how the health of populations suffered considerably as soon as grains were introduced. Specifically, the signs of malnutrition showed up as teeth and bones were weaker and more diseased, and people suddenly started growing several inches shorter. And this was when they were eating the very best kind of grains: all-natural, 100% organic, whole grains, the kind that the health experts want us all to eat!
Now some people claim that humans have somehow evolved in the last couple hundred generations to be able to thrive on grains. The difficult part of that logic is that the mechanics of gene mutation and subsequent natural selection need much, much more time than that to fine-tune the system. We are maybe able to accept grains a tiny bit better than our first ancestors, but we are still hundreds of thousands of generations away from them possibly developing into a health food (or until scientists find a way to rewrite our DNA for us!)
Today, eating grains, especially the refined ones, which are even worse than the original kinds, is leading our society down the path of obesity, heart disease, cancer and diabetes, as well as many other diseases. Processed food is killing us, and grain flour is the original processed food. Have you ever tried eating unprocessed wheat? You don't want to.
So what should we eat? For optimal health, we should eat a diet similar to our ancestors: plants like vegetables, fruits and nuts, and seafood and free-range animals. These give us all of the nutrients that we need in the way that our bodies are designed to utilize.
Grains are quite nutritionally deficient in comparison to our ancient diet. Ever noticed all of the nutrients that are in breakfast cereal? Those are factory chemicals that are added after-the-fact to try to boost the product's healthy street credibility. But I am not buying it, and neither should you.
You can read a bit more about this subject here or here.
And please check out some more articles about food and nutrition on our sister site, the Tipsaurus:
Don't Eat Fake Food
Cook Your Own Food
Eat Less Corn and its Derivatives
How to Pick a Perfect Pineapple Every Time
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Your Best Source for Cutting-Edge Tips
The Tipsaurus, our sister site, is a great place to read about tips to improve your health, finances, and lifestyle.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)