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Dear President Obama, Senator Dodd, Senator Schumer and Senator Shelby:On the eve of the portentous Senate debate over the extent to which the financial industry is to be held accountable so as to avert future megacollapses on the backs of taxpayers, workers and consumers, a great gap has been left unattended. That gap pertains to…

Within the burgeoning tonnage of business press—print and electronic—precious little has been written about the near zero interest paid on savings and money market accounts that total trillions of dollars. The Federal Reserve periodically and proudly announces that it is determined to keep interest rates very low to help lending and the economic recovery. As…

The tragedy at the Massey Energy Company’s very profitable Upper Big Branch coal mine at Montcoal, West Virginia, which so far has cost 25 miners’ lives, is another reminder of the immense human and environmental cost of this fuel. More coal miners have lost their lives from cave-ins, explosions and lung disease since 1900 than…

Why would Pfizer, the world’s largest drug company, so mistreat and silence one of their top molecular biologists that a federal jury in Connecticut awarded her $1.37 million in damages last week? The unraveling answer promises to tear open the curtain covering hazards confronting tens of thousands of scientists and assistants in corporate and university…

A society not alert to signs of its own decay, because its ideology is a continuing myth of progress, separates itself from reality and envelops illusion. One yardstick by which to measure the decay in our country’s political, economic, and cultural life, is the answer to this question: Do the forces of power, which have…

On July 10, 1996, at a Joint Session of the United States Congress, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received a standing ovation for these words: “With America’s help, Israel has grown to be a powerful, modern state. —But I believe there can be no greater tribute to America’s long-standing economic aid to Israel than for…

The U.S. Senate has become the graveyard of Congress! Dozens of bills passed by the House of Representatives—to improve the health, safety and economic well-being of Americans—are locked up in the Senate month after month. This was not always the case. In the sixties and seventies, legislation affecting consumers, workers and the environment often started…

Our just published In the Shadow of Power is a penetrating collection of 92 black and white photographs about life in Washington, DC, by Venezuelan photographer Kike Arnal. After scores of books and reports by our groups over forty-five years, where the premise was that “a thousand words is worth one picture,” I am reminded…

The twin swelling heads of Empire and Oligarchy are driving our country into an ever-deepening corporate state, wholly incompatible with democracy and the rule of law. Once again the New York Times offers its readers the evidence. In its February 25, 2010 issue, two page-one stories confirm this relentless deterioration at the expense of so…