Joseph W Eaton – författare
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2 produkter
2 produkter
Inbunden, Engelska, 2007
769 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
After World War II, banks and other mortgage lenders began requiring insurance to protect them against flawed or defective real estate titles. Over the past sixty years, the title insurance industry has grown steadily in size, power, and secrecy: policies are available for both lenders and property owners and many title insurers offer an array of other real estate services, such as escrow and appraisal. Yet details about the industry's operational procedures remain closely guarded from public exposure.In The American Title Insurance Industry, Joseph and David Eaton present evidence that improvements in recordkeeping over the last sixty years—particularly the advent of computers—have reduced the likelihood of a defective title going unnoticed in a property transaction. But the industry's flaws run deeper than mere obsolescence: in most states, title insurers are allowed to engage in anticompetitive business practices, including price-fixing. Among the findings in this meticulously researched study are instances of insurers charging premiums well above the amount necessary to compensate them for assuming the risk of defect and identical policies with identical risk that vary in price by hundreds of percentage points for different geographic locations.The authors also examine the widely ignored role that the federal and most state governments play in perpetuating the title insurance industry's unfair practices. Whereas most private industries prefer as little government intervention as possible, title insurers welcome it. Federal statue exempts title insurers from anti-trust liability, opening the door for price-fixing and destroying any semblance of free-market competition or market power for consumers.A landmark study for elected officials, and all those involved in the insurance, real estate, and brokerage industries, The American Title Insurance Industry brings to light a long-neglected problem—and offers suggestions for how it might be remedied.
Häftad, Engelska, 2003
395 kr
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The re-issue of a technology-based book 16 years after it was originally published is an unusual event. The events of September 11th, 2001 were more than unusual and have elicited a variety of responses from the technological to the philosophical. One response—the issue of a secure and tamper-resistant process of personal identification for U.S. residents and citizens—is neither new nor difficult to implement from a technological standpoint. The idea of a national ID card has been hotly debated (and rejected) for years, but in the wake of September 11th, its time may finally have come. This revised edition of what was originally published as Card-Carrying Americans is being published for its emphasis on the privacy issues posed by the book's proposals, an updated introduction, and a new foreword. Author Joseph W. Eaton discusses the social value of a national ID card, the problems of technology, the threat to privacy, possible safeguards, and the effects of different policies on society and the Bill of Rights. Eaton addresses some of the same 'tough choice' questions that foreword writer Amitai Etzioni addresses in his influential book, Limits to Privacy. Here Eaton and Etzioni join in contending that some trade-offs are long overdue in the now pressing interest of the public good.