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President Bush, I saw you on the CBS television evening news the other day using a new phrase — “situational information”. You were referring to the conditions just before and during the Katrina hurricane-Levee disaster in New Orleans. The “situational information” was not what it should have been, you declared. This was your way of…
Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. He was born in Winsted, Connecticut on February 27, 1934. In 1955 Ralph Nader received an AB magna cum laude from Princeton University, and in 1958 he received a LLB with distinction from Harvard University. His career began as a lawyer in Hartford, Connecticut in 1959…
It is time for the American people to send a wake-up call to the domestic auto industry (General Motors, Ford Motor Company and DaimlerChrysler). Backlogged engineering advances well suited for commercial application and widespread diffusion are ready for use. Unfortunately, today, as was the case 40 years ago, auto company management stands in the way…
General Motors should be renamed General Wasteful Motors for its decades of destructive resistance to improved fuel efficiency for your motor vehicles. Never mind that you deserve, after all these years of industry stagnation (the last upgrade in fuel efficiency was 1985), more miles for your gasoline dollars. Never mind that our country is more…
One of the bedrock privileges of commercial corporations is that they create and command the very yardsticks by which their performance is generally evaluated. As economist Milton Friedman once said, the sole responsibility of a corporation is to make a profit for its shareholders. Other corporatists may find this a little too narrow a yardstick…
Federal Reserve Chairmen have long had a habit of dropping pithy little phrases into their speeches—most couched in hazy Fed speak and subject to a multitude of interpretations. But there are times when the money czars are actually delivering a message. In 1974, Fed Chairman Arthur Burns traveled to Hawaii to warn the American Bankers…
The late-night backroom deal-making which resulted in a 9-4 emergency vote in favor of the Major League Baseball stadium lease is an affront to the taxpaying residents of the District of Columbia. Not only did the DC Council subordinate the life necessities of District residents to Major League Baseball, they also approved the stadium at…
Governor Mitchell DanielsOffice of the GovernorStatehouseIndianapolis, Indiana 46204-2797 February 7, 2006 Dear Mitch, Assuming you were quoted accurately in The New York Times (February 5, 2006) your “dream” may turn out to be the public’s nightmare. It may be indeed like the Louisiana Purchase, only Indiana is the France of this deal. Assuming the figures…
It was, to use Yogi Berra’s phrase—déjà vu all over again. George W. Bush’s energy program in his State of the Union speech echoed the many similar promises made by his presidential predecessors going back to Ronald Reagan. Promises that were either vague or if specific, distant from realization. What irony to pledge to become…