Naked Capitalism Link of the Day

Today's link: Operating Instructions: The Supreme Court shows corporate America how to screw over its customers and employees without breaking the law, at Slate:

As the Boston Globe editorialized, the new rule "lets Janus and similar companies hide false information in a complicated organization chart [and] can only undermine public confidence in the mutual fund industry over time." Ask yourself whether you really want the Supreme Court to be in the business of teaching corporate giants how better to deceive you about your investments. Yet Thomas, like Scalia in the AT&T case, was more worried about Janus, and its possible exposure to burdensome new lawsuits, than he was about the investors who were deceived. The purpose of civil litigation isn't solely to redress past wrongs. It's also to encourage better future conduct, particularly in situations where the parties have vastly unequal power. When you obliterate the very possibility of civil litigation, you are, by definition, helping big business screw over the little guy. But when you teach big business precisely how to screw over the little guy, and how to do it faster, cheaper, and without detection … well, that's not even an illusion of justice anymore. It's enabling.

The whole thing should be read.  I'm not a big fan of law suits and giant settlements against companies, but I've always found attempts to cap liabilities dangerous.  The companies need to be punished for bad, or even unintentional incompetent behavior.  For example, Chase Bank "accidentally" charged both my checking and savings accounts a $30 monthly fee one month.  When I pointed it out to them, they removed the charges.  But how many accounts did they charge which the people didn't notice?  If they were forced to pay out billions in illegitimate fee charges because of a class-action suit, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.  Now, all they have to do is have an arbitration agreement in every customer contract, and they will never be liable to large suits.  Or maybe they can just print up a false prospectus under a different corporate name.  They can just hand back the money to the people who complain, and keep the money from those who don't.  They can continue business as usual.  The 30 years of packing the court system with conservative ideologues is finally paying dividends for business interests, and we all are going to get screwed.