Blog

Years ago, a venerable law professor described the developing law of personal injury as “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.” He was referring to the courts’ gradual recognition that in­jured people had rights to damages from companies whose unsafe products led to the injuries. Ronald Reagan and his Cabinet members give every indication that…

Rep. Barry Goldwater Jr. (R-Calif.) has revived an old proposal to allow corporations to buy advertising space on postage stamps. He says his legislation will bring in revenue that could reduce the Postal Service’s deficit. To portray his point, he includes in his explanation kit a sample post card bearing a 7-Up emblem. For each…

After weeks of delay, he handed his death-producing decision to his subordinates to announce and went on a travel junket to Japan. Such behavior is in character for outgoing Secretary of Transportation Neil Gold­schmidt. Having overruled his own auto-safety agency’s advice to order the recall of 10 million defective Ford vehicles which have a propensity…

For more than 100 years Americans have expressed deep suspicion about the excessive powers of big business. Farmers pushed for political reforms and anti-monopoly laws early in this century. A few years later factory workers demanded industrial safety laws, an end to child labor and the right to organize. After World War II there arose…

The big rush is on for obtaining cable TV franchises throughout the country. With nearly 20 percent of the homes possessing TV presently wired, the cable in­dustry expects that, during the next 10 years, most of the remaining homes will be connected. The major cable companies, busily wooing local governments in state after state, are…

Though it might have amused Karl Marx, a recent story with the headline “Soviets Could Crush West With Debts” startled Toronto Star readers: “The Kremlin can take over the world simply by defaulting on colossal loans it has had from the West. International bankers and Western diplomats see the scenario, which sounds -like a plot…

He had been in elective office for 50 years and, for Sen. Warren Magnuson, D-Wash., this was his last evening. He sat in his Appropriations Committee office, sipping Washington State wine with a staff member and an old friend. They were watching on a television monitor the House of Representatives’ deliberations on the continuing budget…

The reporter from a national-chain of newspapers sounded astonished last April. He had just called Irving Shapiro, head of the giant Du Pont company, to ask his reaction to the Big Business Day coalition of consumer and labor groups citing Du Pont for what the coalition called harmful business practices. Coolly and with smooth confidence,…

TORONTO–The words of the Big Oil man in New York City came back quickly to this bustling metropolis: “If the proposals are translated into legislation as presented, they will affect every aspect of Canadian economic, political and social life and stretch beyond Canada’s national borders.” Thus spoke Alex Massad, president of Mobil Oil Corp.’s exploration…

Postmaster General William Bolger must have been watching the Big Oil companies operate. He’s learned that really higher price increases bring less public resistance than modest increases. And besides, demanding an outrageous increase gives him an opportunity to compromise down to only a shocking increase. I am referring of course, to the 33.1 percent increase…