Updates

After House passage of the mislabeled Jobs Act, action shifts to to the Senate in a misguided, PIRG-opposed bi-partisan effort to weaken investor protection laws. SF Chronicle financial columnist Kathleen Pender and the NY Times ed board both rip the idea. While Congress appears trapped in a zombie-like fugue state, pretend zombies led by Iowa PIRG (WHO-TV Des Moines) marched against nuclear power this weekend. All this and more consumer  news of the week, in case you missed it.

UPDATE: LINK TO C-SPAN WEBCAST ARCHIVE (My PANEL here and entire event here.)

In times of financial calamity, fraudsters come out to take your last dollar. This afternoon U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will host a consumer financial fraud summit (agenda) at Georgetown Law School near Union Station bringing together enforcers from the DOJ, FTC, state agencies and consumer groups. I'll be on a panel discussing business opportunity frauds. Other panels will be on elder fraud and tax scams. The event is free and open to the public and will be webcast.

Magnets posing as a serious health hazard to children keep appearing in the news. Now with this latest incident in Portland, Oregon, where a three year old girl was rushed into emergency surgery after swallowing 37 tiny magnets, we urge parents if they have had a scary incident with a magnet to alert the Consumer Product Safety Commission through their website.

A misnamed package of legislation to weaken investor protection laws -- the so-called Jobs Act -- is speeding through the House this week. While some Senators are for parts of the package, the Senate is taking a closer look at whether rolling back the landmark investor protections known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act enacted after the Enron and related accounting scandals is really the way to go.