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Mobile Chickens Coming Home to Roost

April 10, 1972
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In the past two years, letters from irate mobile home owners have been pouring into Washington. Their complaints cover almost every conceivable abuse: shoddy construction; plumbing, heating, electrical and insulation deficiencies; fire hazards; porous warranties, financing gyps. Many mobile home insurers also say that most loss claims in mobile homes are due to poor initial…

Freezing the Consumer

April 3, 1972
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With all the flap about the Pay Board, too little attention has been given to the Price Commission. Headed by amiable C. Jackson Grayson, a former business school dean, the Commission is crucial to any attempt to cool the fires of inflation. Yet it is failing. Since Phase II began last November, all components of…

Consumer Protection Agency

March 27, 1972
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When Illinois Senator Charles H. Percy took to the floor of the Senate recently, he said some things the national and Illinois Chambers of Commerce would have rather not heard. A former big businessman himself, Percy hit them hard for their “unwarranted and impassioned attacks” on a pending bill to create a Consumer Protection Agency.…

Drinking the Undrinkable

March 20, 1972
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Not a day too soon, the quality of our drinking water is finally seen as an urgent consumer issue.  Why the delay? For decades, the public has known of the burgeoning pollution of our lakes, rivers and streams from industrial, agricultural and municipal wastes. Recently, reports have detailed such dangerous contaminants as lead, mercury, pesticides,…

Bearding the Beast

March 13, 1972
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The anonymous ITT whistleblower who, mailed to columnist Jack Anderson the private two-page memorandum from Mrs. Dita Beard, ITT’s chief lobbyist, may yet be responsible for the most important reforms for handling antitrust cases in 35 years. For a week and a half, the Senate Judiciary Committee has held hearings into the role which acting…

Frank Talk About Frankfurters

March 6, 1972
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What’s in a frankfurter? This question is being answered with disturbing detail for consumers who want to know what they are buying. Fraud, low nutritional value and health hazards abound, with varying degrees, in most of the 15 billion frankfurters sold annually. The hot dog is offering less nutrition and more fat and added water…

Rechartering The Giant Corporations

February 28, 1972
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To most Americans, a company without a country would seem suspicious and puzzling. But not to many leading corporate executives who are finding that their multinational corporations’ American nationality is something of a drag. Last month, at the White House Conference on the Industrial World Ahead, Carl A. Gerstacker, chairman of Dow Chemical Company, revealed…

Why Bite the Trusty Hand That Feeds?

February 21, 1972
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Several Presidential candi­dates, including Muskie, Lindsay, McGovern and McCloskey, are about to take positions on the issues of concentrated power, secrecy and monopolistic practices of giant cor­porations. Injecting the matter of monopolies and giantism into an election campaign is something of a revival. Although virtually ignored for three dec­ades, the issue draws on the historic…

Breaking Up the Monopolies

February 14, 1972
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Several Presidential candidates, including Muskie, Lindsay, McGovern and McCloskey, are about to take positions on the issues of concentrated power, secrecy and monopolistic practices of giant corporations. Injecting the matter monopolies and giantism into an election campaign is something of a revival. virtually ignored for three decades, it draws on the historic aversion of many…

Roots of Flower Power

February 7, 1972
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If college students woke up to the world around them in the Sixties, the Seventies be when they organized systematically to get something done. The campus demonstrations of recent years have subsided. But in their place a new kind of commitment is emerging which draws on a greater sense of realism about what is required…