Eat the Rich

[O Really]

Speaking of bees and "seeing the hives..."
"Load of 5 million bees falls off truck in Burlington, Ont., police issue warning"

https://globalnews.ca/news/9928114/load ... urlington/

[O Really]

Happy ending for the bees. Rounded up almost all of them.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canad ... gn=KARANGA

[O Really]

I feel comfortable buying honey at our co-op, but will no longer buy from trucks parked on the road. Unless I can see the hive, I don't buy.

We get raw honey packed in quart jars from a place up toward Ramona. Bought their stuff for several years. What do they charge you for a quart? Ours is $25-27, which seems a little steep, but it's definitely real honey.

[billy.pilgrim]

I feel comfortable buying honey at our co-op, but will no longer buy from trucks parked on the road. Unless I can see the hive, I don't buy.

We get raw honey packed in quart jars from a place up toward Ramona. Bought their stuff for several years. What do they charge you for a quart? Ours is $25-27, which seems a little steep, but it's definitely real honey.

Last I paid was $16, but that was pre-covid, so I would guess about the same as you.

[Vrede too]

We get raw honey packed in quart jars from a place up toward Ramona. Bought their stuff for several years. What do they charge you for a quart? Ours is $25-27, which seems a little steep, but it's definitely real honey.

You picked the wrong specialty, or the wrong level of it? These lawyers don't bother discussing "steep" honey prices.

Lawyers who voided Elon Musk's pay as excessive want $6 billion fee

... The fee works out to an hourly rate of $288,888, they said.

... The electric vehicle maker is being asked to pay the fee because it benefited from the return of Musk's pay package, which the legal team said will result in the return to the carmaker of 266 million shares.

"This structure has the benefit of linking the award directly to the benefit created and avoids taking even one cent from the Tesla balance sheet to pay fees," the lawyers wrote, adding that the fee would be tax-deductible to Tesla.

Fucking lawyerspeak. Just because money was stolen doesn't mean that grabbing some of it doesn't make that chunk magically not stolen. Of course it affects the Tesla balance sheet. I'm not saying the lawyers should work for free, but any money they do get could have gone to shareholders, employees and/or customers.

... The largest settlements in shareholder cases have occurred in federal court. The biggest fee was $688 million in 2008 for the legal team that obtained a $7.2 billion settlement in a securities fraud case over the failure of Enron Corp.

The Tesla fee request comes as the Delaware Supreme Court considers an appeal of a $267 million fee in a case that settled for $1 billion involving Dell Technologies.

Delaware judges have said that pursuing cases deep into litigation, through depositions and toward trial, should get a higher percentage of the recovery to reflect the risk and effort. The Musk pay case went to a one-week trial.

Opponents of this approach argue that as settlements and judgments grow in size, attorneys should collect a declining percentage to avoid overcompensation....

[O Really]

"avoiding overcompensation" isn't something taught in most law schools.
But hey, the lawyers are asking for about a third or less of the average percentage for personal injury and similar contingency cases. If it's OK to take a third of a paraplegic's settlement, why can't you take 11% from a yuge corporation? There is one difference, though - in a personal injury settlement, the amount of attorney fee is considered - added in - to the final award. In this case, the $56Bil was already set. Winning that case wasn't something that just any store-front ambulance chaser could ever do in four lifetimes. The company should pay up and be eternally grateful for those guys.

[Vrede too]

"avoiding overcompensation" isn't something taught in most law schools.
But hey, the lawyers are asking for about a third or less of the average percentage for personal injury and similar contingency cases. If it's OK to take a third of a paraplegic's settlement, why can't you take 11% from a yuge corporation? There is one difference, though - in a personal injury settlement, the amount of attorney fee is considered - added in - to the final award. In this case, the $56Bil was already set. Winning that case wasn't something that just any store-front ambulance chaser could ever do in four lifetimes. The company should pay up and be eternally grateful for those guys.

Agreed, they did good. Still, the arguments made in the article are that the total compensation, irrespective of typical contingency rates, is outrageous, and that the hourly rate is ridiculous. If someone had said that the return could be $1B and the hourly rate in the tens of thousands these firms and others still would have taken the case and won. To me, American acceptance of such greed, Elon's or anyone else's, is unacceptable.

Eat the Rich.

[O Really]

Some lawyers work on an hourly fee basis, some work on contingency. If your agreement is contingency (don't get paid unless client wins), then a calculated hourly rate isn't relevant. These guys weren't working on an hourly rate basis. Likewise some "flat rate" charges don't relate well to an hourly conversion. It's like the story of the auto mechanic - opps, "technician" - who checked out a problem with a customer's car. He adjusted one screw and the engine ran smoothly. That'll be $200 - to which the customer sputtered "$200 to take 20 seconds to turn one screw? That's ridiculous." The tech told him "I only charged you $10 to turn the screw. The $190 was for knowing what screw to turn and how far."

Real estate people get paid on commission. So it might take you a year or so to earn your 6% listing and selling your $800K property and collecting your $48K commission. Or, you might get lucky and sell it in a month. Should you take less commission because you didn't work so long/hard?

[Vrede too]

Some lawyers work on an hourly fee basis, some work on contingency. If your agreement is contingency (don't get paid unless client wins), then a calculated hourly rate isn't relevant. These guys weren't working on an hourly rate basis. Likewise some "flat rate" charges don't relate well to an hourly conversion. It's like the story of the auto mechanic - opps, "technician" - who checked out a problem with a customer's car. He adjusted one screw and the engine ran smoothly. That'll be $200 - to which the customer sputtered "$200 to take 20 seconds to turn one screw? That's ridiculous." The tech told him "I only charged you $10 to turn the screw. The $190 was for knowing what screw to turn and how far."

Real estate people get paid on commission. So it might take you a year or so to earn your 6% listing and selling your $800K property and collecting your $48K commission. Or, you might get lucky and sell it in a month. Should you take less commission because you didn't work so long/hard?

If the resultant annual income is a meager $48K, of course not, absurd comparison and I know how contingency works for almost all lawyers. The article's point is that there should be some still generous cap on maximum payouts, one that would be somewhere less than 10x the amount EVER paid out before. I agree. These are fees granted or at least agreed to by OUR judges. They can certainly set limits in the interest of the public, specifically shareholders, employees and/or customers.

Oh, and Elon.

[O Really]

The article's point is that there should be some still generous cap on maximum payouts, one that would be somewhere less than 10x the amount EVER paid out before.

Oh, and Elon.

But why some arbitrary cap? Has there ever been a $56Billion award before? The largest award ever was $150 Billion in punitive damages for a horrendous attack on a young boy, but it wasn't paid nor expected to be because the doer was in prison without assets so whatever the fees were they weren't based on the award amount. They got $56Billion for their client and beat Musk in the process. Why would anybody quibble over their fee?

[Vrede too]

But why some arbitrary cap? Has there ever been a $56Billion award before? The largest award ever was $150 Billion in punitive damages for a horrendous attack on a young boy, but it wasn't paid nor expected to be because the doer was in prison without assets so whatever the fees were they weren't based on the award amount. They got $56Billion for their client and beat Musk in the process. Why would anybody quibble over their fee?

It's obscene on its face and, as I've said, it's coming out of the pockets of real people, not Elon. Plus, it wasn't just the lawyers. It was also the victims, the plaintiffs, the witnesses, and our justice system that won the case. 'Elon tried to grab more' just doesn't do it for me. He is not our yardstick, the potential payees are.

That said, I wouldn't care as much if we followed the lead of other nations and taxed the hell out of outrageous wealth. In a decent system the size of the award wouldn't matter so much, except that the govt would grab it rather than Tesla.

[O Really]

Now you're just making stuff up. Why is it "obscene on it's face"? Without the work of these (or some other very good) lawyers, Tesla's vest pocket board would have given away $56 Billion pretty much just because Musk asked for it. The original plaintiff has at most a chihuahua in the fight and the claimed fees are less than 1% of Tesla's value, to be paid not in cash but in stock. Nobody's getting hurt here but Elon.

[Vrede too]

Now you're just making stuff up. Why is it "obscene on it's face"? Without the work of these (or some other very good) lawyers, Tesla's vest pocket board would have given away $56 Billion pretty much just because Musk asked for it. The original plaintiff has at most a chihuahua in the fight and the claimed fees are less than 1% of Tesla's value, to be paid not in cash but in stock. Nobody's getting hurt here but Elon.

No one here has objected to Elon's pain. I am "making stuff up"? Me? The whole point of the article is how massive and unprecedented the amount is. I'm sure $1 or 2 billion would be sufficient. Forget Elon's whining, but FTA:

... The company may object to the fee, as it has a fee request in a similar case over the pay for its directors....

Opponents of this approach argue that as settlements and judgments grow in size, attorneys should collect a declining percentage to avoid overcompensation....

The stock would otherwise belong to the company or other investors, and would naturally benefit them. No one conjured the stock to pay the fees out of thin air.

[O Really]

So the amount is "massive and unprecedented." So what? Isn't the amount of the award at $56 Bil "massive" too? The author offered zero reason for cutting their fees except to keep them from getting it. IMNVHO the author of the original article just doesn't like lawyers and others who shall remain nameless are picky about which lawyers they'll tolerate.

[Vrede too]

So?

[Vrede too]

More seriously, it's more about my distaste for greedheads - Elon, these lawyers, perhaps the Tesla board - than it is about not liking lawyers. I've never started an Eat the Attorneys thread . . . so far

[billy.pilgrim]

Blaming lawyers is just so much more of a rich people mountains out of molehills distraction with little more relevancy to the problems of fairness in the courtroom than the Death Tax has to tax fairness.
Don’t forget, it was less than 20 years ago that big medical, big insurance, corporate hospitals and republicans heaped most of the blame for our broken healthcare system onto evil medical malpractice attorneys.

[Vrede too]

America's Middle Class Is Shrinking

America's middle class, traditionally considered the backbone of the nation and its economic engine, has been shrinking for the past 50 years, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.

A study based on government data released by the Washington-based nonpartisan fact tank in late May found that the share of Americans living in middle-class households dropped from 61 percent in 1971 to 51 percent in 2023. During the same time, the share of Americans living in lower income households rose from 27 percent to 30 percent, while that of individuals living in upper income households rose from 11 percent to 19 percent.

The findings show us that the wealth gap between Americans has grown deeper in the past decades, exacerbating inequality. While households in all income tiers had much higher incomes in 2023 than five decades before, the income for upper-income households has grown at a much faster pace than that for the middle class since the 1970s.

"It is now over a decade since President Obama called the growing inequality in the United States the defining challenge of our time, reflecting both a reading of economic developments over the course of the last four decades, and offering a forecast of the threat posed to the lives of Americans and of its democracy," Miles Corak, professor of economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, told Newsweek....

"But it is also more polarized, with an ever-increasing share of income and wealth going to the top, as the Pew report documents, an ever-increasing insecurity among the middle, and a declining share of income and a less hopeful future for those at the bottom."

... Crucially, the share of total U.S. household income held by the middle class has also dropped since 1970. By then, the American middle class held 62 percent of the aggregate income of all U.S. households; now they account for 43 percent only. While the share held by the lower-income households has remained relatively unchanged (from 10 percent to 8 percent), the upper class has grown its share from 29 percent to 48 percent....

"The OECD, in a 2019 report, stated that societies with 'a strong middle class have lower crime rates, they enjoy higher levels of trust and life satisfaction, as well as greater political stability and good governance,'" Corak said.

"The fact that the American economy continues to generate prosperity with polarization should be as much a worry to us now as it was a decade or even more ago," he added.

According to Corak, America's middle class can only make a comeback "if workers and working families have more bargaining power in the way wages are set and work organized; if poverty and particularly poverty among children is held in check and lowered by economic growth and by effective and generous government support; if all groups regardless of race, gender and ethnic background have the opportunity to fully develop and profit from their talents and energies; and if the rich pay their fair share in taxes."

[Vrede too]

Travis Kelce Reveals Astronomical Amount He Paid for Taylor Swift's Super Bowl Suite

Remember when Taylor Swift showed up to 2023 Super Bowl, watched Travis Kelce and the Chiefs win against the San Francisco 49ers, hung with a fleet of celebrities (Ice Spice! Blake Lively!), and then walked out onto the field to kiss Trav while the entire world watched / screamed? Yeah, turns out that whole magical moment cost Travis...quite a lot of money!]



... "They’re fucking three million dollars."...

I would have guessed tens or hundreds of thousand dollars.

[Vrede too]

Feds sue software company for enabling nationwide collusion on rent

The DOJ and eight states on Friday filed suit against the software developer RealPage Inc., based in Richardson, Texas, over an alleged scheme to decrease “competition among landlords in apartment pricing and to monopolize the market for [software] that landlords use to price apartments.” The company "has built a business out of frustrating the natural forces of competition," according to the lawsuit.

The suit comes as the Biden administration faces voter concerns over the cost of living in the wake of the worst inflation in four decades.

“Americans should not have to pay more in rent because a company has found a new way to scheme with landlords to break the law,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “Everybody knows the rent is too damn high, and we allege this is one of the reasons why,” Garland added at a press conference.

“We allege that RealPage’s pricing algorithm enables landlords to share confidential, competitively sensitive information and align their rents,” Garland added in a statement. “Using software as the sharing mechanism does not immunize this scheme from [antitrust] liability, and the Justice Department will continue to aggressively enforce the antitrust laws and protect the American people from those who violate them.”

The attorneys general of North Carolina, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington joined the suit, filed in North Carolina federal court. The attorneys general in Washington, D.C., and Arizona have previously filed similar ongoing lawsuits....

Vice President Kamala Harris has also made bringing down housing costs a priority in her campaign for president, pledging last month to “take on corporate landlords and cap unfair rent increases.”

Home prices are at record highs and rents are up more than 30 percent since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, according to Zillow.

The White House in July released a proposal to eliminate a depreciation tax credit for two years for any landlord with more than 50 units who increases rent by more than 5 percent in a year — capping rent on roughly 20 million units around the country.

The case is the latest in a series of actions taken by the DOJ and its sister antitrust agency the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on corporate power across the economy. The Biden administration has filed cases targeting alleged monopoly power by Google, Amazon, Apple and Ticketmaster, as well as less well-known, but important companies in food, chemical and health care markets....

The NC AG is Josh Stein, our next Gov, and he must have some leadership role among the AGs for this suit to be filed in NC. It looks like the Nov AG race here is a Tossup.

Go
Merrick, DoJ
AGs
Kamala
Joe
FTC
Go