Both Sides: Why we don't fuck with the GOP
- Thread starter donwuan
- Start date
Murkowski is always about to not do something. Until she ends up doing it anyway, that is.
I'll believe she's drawn a hard line in the sand when I actually see it.
He might be the most legit person he has named in his cabinet. Atleast from what I hear.
I think this article is very accurate. Repubs have been screaming for a national sales tax for decades. This would be a great opportunity to sneak it into existence.I don't know how accurate this is. Just sharing to see if anyone thinks tariffs could be used as a "protection racket".
It’s a Trap! Trump is pulling a con with tariffs.
Democrats find Trump’s tariff plans puzzling. Tariffs will raise prices. Tariffs will increase inflation. Tariffs tax imports. Tariffs will be a regressive tax, hitting those at the bottom hardest because cheap Chinese and other foreign made stuff is...www.dailykos.com
Plus, I was telling my Aunt that these tarrifs would be a great way to sneak in more profits for companies that sell to the general public. You know prices are going to rise from both the tariffs and companies padding the bill to increase profits
Not much. She's only slightly better than Susan Collns when it comes to drawing lines and Collins is HORRIBLE.
How the Justice Department is cracking down on software that lets landlords collude on rent prices
The U.S. Justice Department is suing RealPage, accusing it of selling software to landlords that allows them to collectively set prices.
Of all the reasons it could be hard to pay rent each month, did you have an algorithm-powered illegal cartel on your list?
Millions of people across the United States are paying far more rent than they can reasonably afford, with rental housing prices rising far quicker than household income. In 2022, 22.4 million U.S. households were spending more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities, up from 20.4 million in 2019.
Many of these households faced severe cost burdens, with an all-time high of 11.6 million struggling with housing costs that consume more than half of their income. In Chicago, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Virginia Beach, and Washington, D.C., year-over-year rental prices are climbing at double-digit rates.
Several factors drive the high cost of rentals, including increasing demand, a dwindling supply of low-rent units, the rising cost of capital to build new rentals, and regulatory barriers restricting the construction of multifamily units.
But there’s another surprising factor driving up rental prices: landlords colluding with the help of technology. The U.S. Justice Department is suing the company RealPage, accusing it of selling software to landlords that allows them to collectively set prices – the illegal practice of price-fixing. As a former official in the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division and a law professor, I’ve been following the case closely.
Any agreement that restricts price competition violates the antitrust laws. Examples of price-fixing agreements include commitments among competitors to hold prices firm, adopt a standard formula for computing prices, or adhere to a minimum fee or price schedule.
So when competitors share proprietary, confidential current price information – directly or indirectly through an intermediary – to stabilize or control industry pricing, they have crossed the line into illegal collusion, according to the FTC. That is the case in major portions of the U.S. rental market, the Justice Department argues.
Landlords who use the software input the rental prices they charge, and the software aggregates all the data from the company’s customers. The software’s algorithm then makes recommendations for what to charge. The recommendations are generally higher than the current market rate, and most customers take the recommendations, which push prices in a market higher.
Even if landlords retain some authority to deviate from the algorithm’s recommendations, it is illegal for competing landlords to jointly delegate key aspects of their pricing to a common algorithm, according to the Justice Department suit. The Justice Department declared that “RealPage replaces competition with coordination. It substitutes unity for rivalry. It subverts competition and the competitive process. It does so openly and directly – and American renters are left paying the price.”
The case is unusual in that, unlike a typical price-fixing cartel, the landlords used RealPage’s algorithms to dramatically improve their ability to engage in price-fixing. Algorithmic price-fixing is typically easier and more effective than other types of cartel behavior. The software can easily aggregate massive amounts of proprietary data, optimize cartel gains, monitor real-time deviations from cartel pricing and minimize incentives to cheat.
“It’s much easier to price-fix when you’re outsourcing it to an algorithm versus when you’re sharing manila envelopes in a smoke-filled room,” Justice Department antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter told The New York Times.
Since 2022, RealPage and various property managers have been named as defendants in more than 30 class action lawsuits alleging the RealPage software is used to unlawfully fix rental prices. Federal courts tend to be sympathetic to such arguments, as shown in the denial of a motion to dismiss the case in one of the private lawsuits filed against RealPage.
In that case, the court held that a price-fixing agreement could exist as a matter of law. Landlords provided RealPage’s algorithmic system with their proprietary commercial data, knowing that RealPage would require the same from their competitors and would use all of that data to recommend rental prices to all of the company’s clients.
Even RealPage’s own executives have boasted that when landlords collectively use their software, they can use “every possible opportunity to increase price,” according to the complaint.
RealPage argued that its software “simply helps landlords make data-driven decisions” in a competitive market. The company claims its tools are designed to reflect market conditions and optimize occupancy rates, not to engage in price-fixing.
The company describes the impact of its alleged collusion with landlords as “a rising tide [that] raises all ships.” Perhaps a better description for their service is a rising tide that raises all ships for those who have one.
The Justice Department’s case and the private cases are in the early stages of litigation. If the department is successful, RealPage will be barred from engaging in the anticompetitive practices related to helping landlords share proprietary pricing information.
Roger Alford is a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Millions of people across the United States are paying far more rent than they can reasonably afford, with rental housing prices rising far quicker than household income. In 2022, 22.4 million U.S. households were spending more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities, up from 20.4 million in 2019.
Many of these households faced severe cost burdens, with an all-time high of 11.6 million struggling with housing costs that consume more than half of their income. In Chicago, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Virginia Beach, and Washington, D.C., year-over-year rental prices are climbing at double-digit rates.
Several factors drive the high cost of rentals, including increasing demand, a dwindling supply of low-rent units, the rising cost of capital to build new rentals, and regulatory barriers restricting the construction of multifamily units.
But there’s another surprising factor driving up rental prices: landlords colluding with the help of technology. The U.S. Justice Department is suing the company RealPage, accusing it of selling software to landlords that allows them to collectively set prices – the illegal practice of price-fixing. As a former official in the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division and a law professor, I’ve been following the case closely.
The perils of price-fixing
The Federal Trade Commission defines price-fixing as an agreement, conspiracy or combination among competitors to raise, fix or otherwise maintain the price at which their goods or services are sold.Any agreement that restricts price competition violates the antitrust laws. Examples of price-fixing agreements include commitments among competitors to hold prices firm, adopt a standard formula for computing prices, or adhere to a minimum fee or price schedule.
So when competitors share proprietary, confidential current price information – directly or indirectly through an intermediary – to stabilize or control industry pricing, they have crossed the line into illegal collusion, according to the FTC. That is the case in major portions of the U.S. rental market, the Justice Department argues.
One algorithm for all
In August 2024, the Justice Department and eight states filed a lawsuit in a federal court in North Carolina against RealPage. The Justice Department accused the company of selling software to landlords that collects nonpublic information from competing landlords and uses that combined information to make pricing recommendations.Landlords who use the software input the rental prices they charge, and the software aggregates all the data from the company’s customers. The software’s algorithm then makes recommendations for what to charge. The recommendations are generally higher than the current market rate, and most customers take the recommendations, which push prices in a market higher.
Even if landlords retain some authority to deviate from the algorithm’s recommendations, it is illegal for competing landlords to jointly delegate key aspects of their pricing to a common algorithm, according to the Justice Department suit. The Justice Department declared that “RealPage replaces competition with coordination. It substitutes unity for rivalry. It subverts competition and the competitive process. It does so openly and directly – and American renters are left paying the price.”
The case is unusual in that, unlike a typical price-fixing cartel, the landlords used RealPage’s algorithms to dramatically improve their ability to engage in price-fixing. Algorithmic price-fixing is typically easier and more effective than other types of cartel behavior. The software can easily aggregate massive amounts of proprietary data, optimize cartel gains, monitor real-time deviations from cartel pricing and minimize incentives to cheat.
“It’s much easier to price-fix when you’re outsourcing it to an algorithm versus when you’re sharing manila envelopes in a smoke-filled room,” Justice Department antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter told The New York Times.
Since 2022, RealPage and various property managers have been named as defendants in more than 30 class action lawsuits alleging the RealPage software is used to unlawfully fix rental prices. Federal courts tend to be sympathetic to such arguments, as shown in the denial of a motion to dismiss the case in one of the private lawsuits filed against RealPage.
In that case, the court held that a price-fixing agreement could exist as a matter of law. Landlords provided RealPage’s algorithmic system with their proprietary commercial data, knowing that RealPage would require the same from their competitors and would use all of that data to recommend rental prices to all of the company’s clients.
Classic price-fixing or data-driven decisions?
Some landlords seem to be aware that in sharing confidential price information to RealPage’s software, they were facilitating the unlawful monitoring and raising of rental prices. The Justice Department complaint quoted a landlord commenting on RealPage’s software, “I always liked this product because your algorithm uses proprietary data from other subscribers to suggest rents and term. That’s classic price-fixing.”Even RealPage’s own executives have boasted that when landlords collectively use their software, they can use “every possible opportunity to increase price,” according to the complaint.
RealPage argued that its software “simply helps landlords make data-driven decisions” in a competitive market. The company claims its tools are designed to reflect market conditions and optimize occupancy rates, not to engage in price-fixing.
The company describes the impact of its alleged collusion with landlords as “a rising tide [that] raises all ships.” Perhaps a better description for their service is a rising tide that raises all ships for those who have one.
The Justice Department’s case and the private cases are in the early stages of litigation. If the department is successful, RealPage will be barred from engaging in the anticompetitive practices related to helping landlords share proprietary pricing information.
Roger Alford is a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Never forget
Black kids from other Schools nearby should go up there and beat the shit out them. Thats what we’d do . You a kid you can fuck people up and get released to your parents. Mid City ain’t too far. They need to drive up and pummel them
They forgot one more... white and male preferred.
Well black kids need to build up their resilience against racist cac kids, so the racist cac kids don't have to feel bad about their racist cac tendencies
Segregation academies across the South get millions in taxpayer dollars
by Jennifer Berry Hawes and Mollie Simon This story was originally published by ProPublica ,� a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up ...
www.dailykos.com
Senators took down one Trump Cabinet pick. But the fight over their authority is just beginning
The withdrawal of Matt Gaetz as President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general serves as a reminder that the Senate is still relevant when it comes to installing a president’s Cabinet
The Senate Must Block Trump’s Cabinet Nominees
Trump's Cabinet appointees have no real interest in serving the American people. Working Americans will pay the price for this dysfunctional leadership, through the repealing of the Affordable Care Act and cutting Medicaid under RFK Jr. and having a white Christian nationalist commanding our...
sign.moveon.org
Do Republicans in the Senate are getting that extremely nervous about Trump picks you see what they did to Matt Gates. They know what could happen to them next election cycle if shit get too bad.The Senate Must Block Trump’s Cabinet Nominees
Trump's Cabinet appointees have no real interest in serving the American people. Working Americans will pay the price for this dysfunctional leadership, through the repealing of the Affordable Care Act and cutting Medicaid under RFK Jr. and having a white Christian nationalist commanding our...
US farm groups want Trump to spare their workers from deportation
Story by Leah Douglas and Ted Hesson• 3h • 4 min read
By Leah Douglas and Ted Hesson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. farm industry groups want President-elect Donald Trump to spare their sector from his promise of mass deportations, which could upend a food supply chain heavily dependent on immigrants in the United States illegally.
So far Trump officials have not committed to any exemptions, according to interviews with farm and worker groups and Trump's incoming "border czar" Tom Homan.
Nearly half of the nation's approximately 2 million farm workers lack legal status, according to the departments of Labor and Agriculture, as well as many dairy and meatpacking workers.
Trump, a Republican, vowed to deport millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally as part of his campaign to win back the White House, a logistically challenging undertaking that critics say could split apart families and disrupt U.S. businesses.
Homan has said immigration enforcement will focus on criminals and people with final deportation orders but that no immigrant in the U.S. illegally will be exempt.
He told Fox News on Nov. 11 that enforcement against businesses would "have to happen" but has not said whether the agricultural sector would be targeted.
"We've got a lot on our plate," Homan said in a phone interview this month.
Mass removal of farm workers would shock the food supply chain and drive consumer grocery prices higher, said David Ortega, a professor of food economics and policy at Michigan State University.
"They're filling critical roles that many U.S.-born workers are either unable or unwilling to perform," Ortega said.
Farm groups and Republican allies are encouraged by the incoming administration's stated focus on criminals.
Dave Puglia, president and CEO of Western Growers, which represents produce farmers, said the group supports that approach and is concerned about impacts to the farm sector if a deportation plan was targeted at farmworkers.
Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt did not directly address the farmer concerns in a statement to Reuters.
"The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail, like deporting migrant criminals and restoring our economic greatness," Leavitt said. "He will deliver."
Trump announced on Saturday that he would nominate Brooke Rollins, who chaired the White House Domestic Policy Council during his first term, to become agriculture secretary.
Agriculture and related industries contributed $1.5 trillion to the U.S. gross domestic product, or 5.6%, in 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In his first administration, Trump promised the farm sector that his deportation effort would not target food sector workers, though the administration did conduct raids at some agricultural worksites, including poultry processing plants in Mississippi and produce processing facilities in Nebraska.
U.S. Representative John Duarte, a Republican and fourth-generation farmer in California's Central Valley, said farms in the area depend on immigrants in the U.S. illegally and that small towns would collapse if those workers were deported.
2024 Calif. District 13 General
U.S. House
estimates
98% of votes counted
| Candidate | votes | pct. |
|---|---|---|
John Duarte* GOP | 102,550 | 50.0% |
Adam Gray Dem | 102,346 | 50.0% |
Nov 24, 2024, 8:01 AM
Duarte's congressional seat is one of a handful of close races where a winner has yet to be declared.
Duarte said the Trump administration should pledge that immigrant workers in the country for five years or longer with no criminal record will not be targeted and look at avenues to permanent legal status.
"I would like to hear more clearly expressed that these families will not be targeted," he said.
'WE NEED THE CERTAINTY'
Farmers have a legal option for hiring labor with the H-2A visa program, which allows employers to bring in an unlimited number of seasonal workers if they can show there are not enough U.S. workers willing, qualified and available to do the job.
The program has grown over time, with 378,000 H-2A positions certified by the Labor Department in 2023, three times more than in 2014, according to agency data.
But that figure is only about 20% of the nation's farm workers, according to the USDA. Many farmers say they cannot afford the visa's wage and housing requirements. Others have year-round labor needs that rule out the seasonal visas.
Farmers and workers would benefit from expanded legal pathways for agricultural laborers, said John Walt Boatright, director of government affairs at the American Farm Bureau Federation, a farmer lobby group.
"We need the certainty, reliability and affordability of a workforce program and programs that are going to allow us to continue to deliver food from the farm to the table,” said John Hollay, director of government relations at the International Fresh Produce Association, which represents produce farmers.
For decades, farm and worker groups have attempted to pass immigration reform that would enable more agricultural workers to stay in the U.S., but the legislation has failed so far.
The risk of enforcement against farms is likely low because of the necessity of the workers, said Leon Fresco, an immigration attorney at Holland & Knight.
"There are some very significant business interests that obviously want agricultural labor and need it," he said.
But for farmworkers, the fear of enforcement can create chronic stress, said Mary Jo Dudley, director of the Cornell Farmworker Program, which is training workers to know their rights if confronted by immigration officials.
If there are again raids on meatpacking plants, immigration enforcement should take precautions to avoid detaining workers in the country legally, said Marc Perrone, international president of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents some meatpacking workers.
Edgar Franks, a former farmworker and political director at Familias Unidas por la Justicia, a worker union in Washington state, said the group is seeing new energy from workers to organize.
"The anxiety and fear is real. But if we're together, there’s a better chance for us to fight back," he said.
Wtf
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Looks like minorities in those communities should work the system and put trump's dei/restitution slam to the testSegregation academies across the South get millions in taxpayer dollars
by Jennifer Berry Hawes and Mollie Simon This story was originally published by ProPublica ,� a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up ...www.dailykos.com