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Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve — an agency that serves purposes which officials in other western countries would call “central banking functions” — must keep saying to himself these days that “It doesn’t get any better than this.” Here he is, head of the most powerful federal regulatory agency in the government and…
The judge’s finding of facts in the Microsoft case are a devastating indictment of the company. The judge found Microsoft responsible for a litany of anticompetitive and illegal practices that have harmed consumers. The 207-page decision is a textbook on the use of monopoly power. The court found that Microsoft strong-armed personal computer makers and…
When it comes to the tens of billions of dollars of annual health care fraud that all of you eventually pay for, the sophistication of the private criminal enterprisers is ahead of the government’s law enforcers. The usual figure for the amount of billing fraud and abuse that the government estimates is 10 percent of…
The events were depressingly familiar. After the crash of Egyptair Flight 990, the National Transportation Safety Board rushed into action, marshaling people and equipment and spending millions of dollars to recover as much of the airplane as possible in order to find out the cause of the crash. The events were depressingly familiar. After the…
“All in all, I think we hit the jackpot,” President Ronald Reagan told a Rose Garden audience of congressmen and lobbyists celebrating the deregulation of the savings and loan industry on Oct. 15, 1982. Now Congress is icing down the champagne again in anticipation of the signing of a new and much more grandiose deregulation…
The financial services industry spent millions on public relations, opinion polls and advertising to promote legislation in the current Congress which would allow the merger of banks, securities firms and insurance companies under common ownership in financial conglomerates. All this in addition to the more than $30 million in campaign contributions that can be traced…
STEP BACK FOR a moment and contemplate what corporate hucksters are doing to American childhood. Bypassing the parents, these companies brazenly market directly to children, starting at age two. These marketeers (with the advice of the child psychologists on their payroll) wrap these youngsters in a commercial cocoon for an average of 30 hours a…
SOLAR ENERGY advocate Dan Berman has sent me news of a development for electricity consumers in Davis that millions of households may find of interest during these times of energy deregulation. A group of citizens are moving toward a referendum in Davis to establish the town’s own municipal utility district. If the voters pass this…
The drumbeat to corporatize (a.k.a.: privatize) essential facilities continues to beat from the business-funded think tanks in Washington, D.C. Recently, the government’s uranium enrichment installations — which deal with national security matters — were corporatized, and are now run by a company listed on the stock exchange. Corporatization is supposed to be more efficient, more…
Remember when the “energy crisis” was the big political issue? Remember the long gas lines and the sudden surge in gasoline prices — once in the mid-’70s and once in the late ’70s? Remember the politicians demanding that our country strive for energy independence, so that we would no longer need to be reliant on…