Blog

The other day I received a telephone message from a young lawyer who is working on a research project for us in California. “I don’t have ready access to a computer anymore, so writing my report will be delayed.” Earlier, she was informed that I did not care how she produced her 100 page report…

Tom Foley (D-WA) is the new House Speaker, replacing Jim Wright who resigned in the wake of charges by the House of Representatives Ethics Committee. Foley’s first move is to handle the $300 billion bailout legislation for the crooked Savings and Loan (5&L) mess. Far from being a new broom, Foley’s new regime appears to…

It is college graduation time and the alums are streaming back to their reunions where nostalgia and University stroking reign. Many of these reunions — especially the 25th, 30th and 35th — are elaborate festivities preceded by months of preparation between University officials and class leaders. A major objective is to amass the largest possible…

Well it finally happened — a state insurance commissioner finally stood up and spoke out — albeit in a private letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, Senator Joseph Biden. Delaware Insurance Commissioner, David Levinson, wrote to urge that Biden defend the civil racketeering laws which authorize insurance commissioners to bring triple-damage lawsuits against defrauders of…

This week Exxon holds its annual shareholders meeting in New Jersey. The meeting’s focus will not be on sales projections. Both outside and inside the hotel, the emphasis will be on the giant Alaskan oil spill by the Exxon Valdez tanker in late March. The demonstrations outside the Hotel, and the shareholders and proxy holders…

Euphemisms usually go with duplicity and the House Banking Committee deliberations on the giant Savings and Loan bailout provoked this combination repeatedly. Each time a Committee member proposed a modest consumer protection measure to slightly balance off the placing of this $300 billion thirty year bailout on the banks of consumers, a minion of the…

In the old days, lawns with weeds were treated with a little elbow grease. Now they are more likely to be treated with hazardous chemicals called insecticides and herbicides. You don’t often see a ten year old or teenager out there working the lawns. Instead you see the lawn care company’s truck and the applicator…

A bizarre twist has overtaken National Consumer Week (April 23-29) which is announced each year by the White House. During the Reagan years it was merely a mockery as his alleged consumer advisor, Virginia Knauer, went through the charade and the genuine consumer groups avoided or ridiculed this phony public relations ploy. This year, however,…

Congressman Joe Kennedy (D-MA) sits in an anteroom during a break in the House Banking Committee’s markup of the massive savings and loan scandal shaking his head. He can scarcely believe what is happening -­Democrats joining with Republicans on key votes to weaken the already weak Bush proposals for the bailout. One of the votes,…

Historians may some day call these years the Reagan Hangover, but it took only a casual reader of newspapers to see the current consequences of Mr. Reagan’s unceasing and servile compliance with massive corporate delinquencies. The Exxon supertanker oil spill of ten million gallons of devastation to Prince William Sound and beyond in Alaska is…