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Privacy lawsuits in the United States usually seek damages for revealing embarrassing but true facts by the media— the so-called “disclosure tort” — but this is a “poor vehicle for grappling with the problems of privacy and reputation in the digital age,” says Neil M. Richards, JD, privacy law expert and professor at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. “The disclosure tort has never really worked successfully,” he says. “It’s largely unconstitutional.” Richards notes that there are two existing privacy law concepts that may be good supplements or even replacements to the disclosure tort.

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Bank of America’s plan to begin charging customers $5 a month for using its debit card has been met with resistance from citizens and members of Congress alike. In fact, there is some reputational capital at risk as a result of this kind of charge, says a banking expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

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President Barack Obama is calling for a more modernized and concentrated hiring process in the federal government as more of its workers retire. While the government attracts many excellent candidates, the recruitment process remains bureaucratic, cumbersome and complex, leading many talented workers to be turned away. “The federal government is facing a war for talent and its competitors are winning,” says Jackson A. Nickerson, PhD, professor of strategy at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.

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The Federal Reserve’s latest plan to prop up the sagging American economy, known as Operation Twist, won’t have a significant impact, says a finance expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

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Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s “Ponzi scheme” charge and Florida Sen. Mark Rubio’s assertion that Social Security is unsustainable recycle baseless attacks that go back as far as the 1930s, says Merton C. Bernstein, LLB, a nationally recognized expert on Social Security. “These are attempts to muster political support by appealing to long-held prejudices to satisfy those who never accepted Social Security,” Bernstein says. “To use them as guides to public policy would undermine our country’s most successful family protection program."

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Labor unions may be under siege, but the equalizing force they provide is still necessary, says Marion Crain, JD, labor law expert at Washington University in St. Louis. “Wage inequality — the gap between the highest income and lowest income workers within demographic groups, controlling for education and other factors — has not been higher since the Great Depression,” she says.

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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recently filed a lawsuit against the Camdenton, Mo. school district for using filtering software to block websites targeted to the gay and lesbian community. "The Supreme Court has made clear that school districts have great latitude in choosing what educational materials they make available to their students," says Gregory P. Magarian, JD, constitutional law expert and professor of law at Washington University In St. Louis. "However, in a case in 1982, a plurality of the Court suggested that schools may not have the authority to remove materials from school libraries based on viewpoint discrimination."

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Sales of luxury goods, which analysts say could spike as much as eight percent this year, are soaring thanks to expanding personal wealth in China, says a luxury retail expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

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Discussion of the federal debt ceiling has dominated the front page recently. Several Washington University in St. Louis faculty experts, all members of the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy, have offered their opinions to the news media on the history of the debt ceiling and what may happen if a deal is not reached.

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While the new Consumer Protection Financial Bureau (CFPB), which opens today, is aimed at overseeing the books at big banks and making sure financial products are clear, a more effective solution would be to better enforce laws already on the books, says a banking expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

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The Italian government on July 14 passed an austerity package designed to balance the budget by 2014 and protect Italy from a debt crisis. Will it work? Most likely not, says an economist at Washington University in St. Louis.

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What can Waffle House teach about disaster preparedness and risk management, especially in the wake of this spring’s devastating tornadoes? Plenty, says a supply chain expert at Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis.

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AARP’s ambiguous statements about Social Security benefit cuts have led to a public roasting of the organization for caving into public pressure, says Merton C. Bernstein, LLB, a nationally recognized expert on Social Security and the Walter D. Coles Professor Emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. “Whatever stance AARP has taken, it does not provide ‘cover’ for the Obama Administration to agree to cut benefits now, soon or in the future. If AARP does not vigorously and clearly repudiate what some see as willingness to accept benefit cuts, AARP will be the loser.”

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Hazards with horrific outcomes — like the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan — are not only difficult to contemplate but are also challenging to plan for financially. Especially when the odds of them happening are incredibly low, says Stuart I. Greenbaum, management expert at Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis.

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Social Security’s yearly cost-of living adjustments (COLA) are targeted for reduction through a proposed “chained COLA” formula, and that could be a huge problem for those dependent on Social Security income. “COLA is an invaluable feature of Social Security,” says Merton C. Bernstein, LLB, a nationally recognized expert on Social Security. According to Bernstein, Republican “reformers” propose to reduce COLA claiming that the current method of calculating it overstates inflation. “This unrealistically assumes that people have the opportunity to buy lower priced substitutes when millions of people lack access to markets that offer such choices,” he says.

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Despite all the "irrational exuberance" April 26 surrounding the first-ever news conference conducted by a Federal Reserve bank chair, the issues that Chairman Ben Bernanke chose to dance around were equally unsurprising as those he managed to address, says Michele Boldrin, PhD, the chair of the Department of Economics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

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In the late 20th century, Chinese authorities enacted sweeping legal reforms, but in recent years, officials have stepped back from these reforms in the face of increasing citizen protests and concerns about social stability. “Horrified by the chaos of the Maoist era, Chinese authorities rebuilt their legal system in the 1980s and 1990s,” says Carl Minzner, JD, leading expert on Chinese law and politics and associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. Now Chinese Party and court authorities have begun to move away from the reform track of the last several decades, reasserting tighter control over the Chinese judiciary, restricting the activities of public interest lawyers, and resurrecting earlier mediation practices.

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A government shutdown is looming and many politicians who are claiming “we’re broke” are proposing short-term or long-term federal budget plans with steep budget cuts as the only option to reduce the deficit. “But it looks like budget deficits are being driven in part by a deliberate strategy to sustain them, so policymakers are forced to cut spending,” says Timothy McBride, PhD, economist and associate dean for public health at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. “The evidence certainly supports the theory that the Republicans are using a strategy of ‘starving the beast,’” he says.

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This summer, the Supreme Court will rule whether to allow the district court certification of the class action gender bias case against Wal-Mart. While much of the attention has focused on the enormous size of the class, the impact of the case is likely to be felt across a range of class action and employment discrimination cases, says Pauline Kim, JD, the Charles Nagel Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis and employment law expert.

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Last November, Missouri voters approved Proposition B, which amended state law to more strictly regulate large-scale dog breeders. Now, just four months later, Prop B is set to be repealed if the Missouri House of Representatives and Gov. Jay Nixon follow the state senate’s lead. Can this happen in every state? Only if the voters allow it, says Gregory Magarian, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis and an expert on constitutional law.