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Something happened a few days ago in the U.S. Senate that was more than good for consumers.By a vote of 60 to 33, the Senate passed a bill to establish a National Consumer Cooperative Bank that would provide credit and technical assistance to a wide variety of consumer co-ops. In doing so, the Senate majority…
Top Firestone Company executives and their advisers are trying to decide how to handle the regulatory and market problems involving some 13 million “Firestone 500” steel belted radial tires now on the highway. These are the tires, as many motorists know, that stand accused as being a danger on the roads by the National Highway…
Trinidad Perez was working as a janitor at a General Dynamics plant in California when an accident on the job left him totally and permanently disabled. His company was covered under a disability policy issued by Aetna Life Insurance. Despite a statement by his physician and a verification by Aetna’s claims adjuster that Perez was…
Shoes. Shoes. Shoes. They are like the weather; people complain all the time but nothing is done about them. Shoes, in fact, for all their many problems have been largely ignored by the consumer movement. Consumer Reports, by way of illustration, has only conducted one test series on shoes and then only “Boys’ Shoes” as…
Shoes. Shoes. Shoes. They are like the weather; people complain all the time but nothing is done about them. Shoes, in fact, for all their many problems have been largely ignored by the consumer movement. Consumer Reports, by way of illustration, has only conducted one test series on shoes and then only “Boys’ Shoes,” as…
It was an occasion that remains memorable 20 years later. There was the president of little American Motors, George Romney, testifying before the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee and telling it like it is about General Motors and Ford Motor Co. In addition to providing valuable insights about how giant companies can reduce competition and innovation in…
The politics of fighting inflation from Washington is increasingly becoming the politics of put- ting it to the weak and subsidizing the powerful. A few days ago, at the height of the struggle over the cotton dust lung disease standard that pitted White House advisers against the Department of Labor, a White House aide told…
More than 400 years ago, Sir Edward Coke observed that the corporation has no soul. Today, Ford Motor Co. and Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. are embroiled in situations that reflect the soulless attributes of the corporate estate. Herein is a tale of two corporations in brief which raises the question: Would these people do…
The other day the Interstate Commerce Commission mailed out its announcement that the 1977 performance reports on household goods movers were available for consumer inspection. Attached to the release was a listing of the 10 largest movers by name and the statistics they filed concerning their servicing of individual householders. For movers like Allied Van…
For several years Carol Foreman of the Consumer Federation of America and Rod Leonard of the Community Nutrition Institute were on the same side of numerous food policy issues involving the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). But Foreman, now assistant secretary of agriculture, made a decision a few days ago regarding nitrites in bacon that…