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Judge Tells RIAA To Stop 'Bankrupting' Litigants
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The Boston judge who has consolidated all of the RIAA's Massachusetts cases into a single case over which she has been presiding for the past 5 years delivered something of a rebuke to the RIAA's lawyers, we have learned. At a conference this past June, the transcript of which (PDF) has just been released, Judge Nancy Gertner said to them that they 'have an ethical obligation to fully understand that they are fighting people without lawyers ... to understand that the formalities of this are basically bankrupting people, and it's terribly critical that you stop it ...' She also acknowledged that 'there is a huge imbalance in these cases. The record companies are represented by large law firms with substantial resources,' while it is futile for self-represented defendants to resist. The judge did not seem to acknowledge any responsibility on her part, however, for having created the 'imbalance,' and also stated that the law is 'overwhelmingly on the side of the record companies,' even though she seems to recognize that for the past 5 years she has been hearing only one side of the legal story."
So the dollar is strengthening, making foreign goods cheap. We rely on cheap foreign goods, so this is a good thing, right? Wrong. It's only temporary. The dollar is strengthening because foreign banks are liquidizing debt held in dollars. Basically they are paying back debts and pulling stocks out of stock markets, temporarily driving up the demand for the dollar by paying back debts with them. Once the capitulation reaches a peak, the dollar will fall like a rock as there will be no more dollars needed to unwind debt and foreigners will be adverse to taking on new U.S. debt for obvious reasons.
In short, the American "brand" is hurting. The U.S. government is propping up failing businesses and is encouraging banks to engage in risky behavior. American companies have been selling bad debt to foreign countries for years, debt that may have had high paying interest rates but is now racking up significant losses for foreign banks. The USD has a major image problem that will not be solved any time soon.
Don't be surprised if $1 USD will be worth 50 or even 30 eurocents in the next decade, or tariffs imposed to that effect which will raise the cost of foreign goods. It will be welcome news to the U.S. economy which will need a new wave of investment to counteract unemployment.
There are many losers around the world who will be angry in this process, and they will want to blow shit up. Don't be surprised if we have another cold war, or worse yet, start WWIII.
GDP uber alles, raise it at any cost! Wars increase economic activity by creating things to replace things that have blown up (bombs, bridges, etc). Warmongers may well persuade us to become the window repair man who moonlights as a window smasher to increase business. Never mind our standard of living will plummet as some of us face our deaths in foxholes as others bust our asses building bombs, ceding raw materials that would otherwise produce household goods in the name of the war effort, and living at subsistence levels.
Remember, you read it here first.
- Profit Bob
vc: eminence
PENIS!
Since when does /. allow posting from jail. Get these fucking racists off of here.
Obligatory blog plug: http://www.caseybanner.ca/
I love your sig :)
"Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" - JFK
John McCain is like JFK.
"Ask not what you can do for your country, but what your country can do for you" - Obama
And probably not needing to reboot either, except each time you upgraded your hardware to a new box.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."