Clark has been on a slow burn about arbitration for a very long time. The practice of arbitration is imposed on us today by stockbrokers and credit card companies, and we are powerless to control it. Why is arbitration so bad? Most of the systems set up by these companies are designed to cheat customers. These businesses basically force us into agreements that say we will agree to their arbitration system. When a customer gets into arbitration, the companies win 99 percent of the time. According to the Wall Street Journal, that happens because of the slanted arbitration panel. Companies take what are supposed to be neutral spots and they fill them with biased arbitrators. For instance, the “public arbitrators” actually work for a brokerage house and will always find in favor of the company. The good news is that Congress is looking into the practice of arbitration. Clark thinks mediation should be voluntary, not arbitrary. If it were voluntary, the customer would have to feel comfortable with how the process would work. So consumers would never enter arbitration if they knew the rules were bogus. That is the way it should be.