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This year marks the 55th anniversary of the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, one of the great blows to American democracy.The Act, which was drafted by employers, fundamentally infringed on workers’ human rights.Legally, it impeded employees’ right to join together in labor unions, it undermined the power of unions to represent workers’ interests effectively, and…
All the headlines about corporate disclosures and the need for transparency are sending shivers through the banking industry and its regulators who have always lived in a protected and largely secret world. Hundreds of millions of dollars are expended on examinations of depository institutions, but most of the key findings are treated as inside information…
For decades, the American Automobile Association-better known as Triple A- has grown up with the American automobile. Millions of travelers have joined to ensure themselves of roadside service in emergencies and to gain access to triptickets (maps), travelers checks, insurance and other travel offerings. Beneath its benign image as a “travel club” AAA has become…
Bollier’s new book “Silent Theft-The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth” (Routledge, New York and London) is a loud wake-up call for citizens interested in halting the steady exploitation and erosion of the nation’s resources and values for short-term gains by the few. And the book does, indeed, provide the reader a wide, vivid and…
Philip J. Purcell, chairman of Morgan Stanley, a Wall Street firm under investigation by New York Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer, for deceiving investors, visited Congress recently to peddle an amendment that Spitzer called “incredible”. It would stop all state attorneys generals and state securities regulators from enforcing their securities laws against any company subject to…
What Business Week magazine calls “the corporate crime wave” shows every sign of worsening, as more major corporations scramble to admit massive deception of investors, looting of pension funds, self-enrichment of top executives, restatement of earnings and giant farewell compensations packages to departing bosses who wrecked their companies to further their own megagreed. So much…
Control of our social institutions, our government, and our political system is presently in the hands of a self-serving, powerful few, known as an oligarchy, which too often has excluded citizens from the process. Our political system has degenerated into a government of the power brokers, by the power brokers, and for the power brokers, and is…
Dr. Roberto J. Gonzalez, an anthropologist who teaches at San Jose State University, recently completed a study entitled “Latino Overweight and Obesity: Marketing Disease to Minorities.” Among his findings are that “Immigrants once came to the U.S. and watched their children grow taller and stronger. Today many come and watch their children grow fatter and…
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which dominate the nation’s housing finance market get most of the attention when the subject of Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) comes up in Washington. But, Fannie and Freddie are not alone in this growing world of government sponsored enterprises which operate in a twilight zone somewhere between government and free…
New York Attorney General, Eliot L. Spitzer, called his settlement with Merrill Lynch for defrauding and misleading investors, “a triumph for the investing public.” Pulitzer prizewinning business reporter for the New York Times, Gretchen Morgenson, called the agreement “clearly” “a fine deal” for Merrill Lynch. Who is right? Gretchen Morgenson. First, give Spitzer his due.…