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In searching for models of superior consumer performance across this land, I have come across two consumer cooperatives in Michigan. One deals with auto repair and the other with optical services. Both are nonprofit but are run on a “businesslike” basis to keep competent staff operating efficiently. As many consumer-complaints about auto repair shops and…
The word spread like wildfire throughout the community of professional thieves: Fords are easier to steal than other recent car models. NOW, in response to questions, the Ford Motor Co. admits it. William Brown of Ford’s Washington staff says, “There’s no denying the numbers. The ratio is somewhat higher on Fords . . . .…
How often have you heard politicians support “tax reform”? Almost everybody in Washington wants some form of “tax reform” — so much so that the phrase itself has become a semantic coverup for carving further loopholes in the tax laws. CONSIDER what is transpiring in Congress with the so-called Tax Reform Act of 1975 (H.R.…
Question: Who is a leading candidate for the title of “The Best Friend of the U.S. Shareholder”? Answer: Stanley Sporkin. chief of the Enforcement Division of the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is Uncle Sam’s watchdog against corporate financial manipulations. SPORKIN? Who ever heard of Sporkin? Ask a growing number of big businessmen and their…
Attention William Simon, William F. Buckley, Milton Friedman, American Enter- prise Institute and other economic conservatives! Why are you so calm before the gathering storm of atomic socialism? WHERE IS your ideological fervor for free-market enterprise when giant mismanaged corporations are pushing Uncle Sam (alias the small taxpayer) to bail them out by socializing their…
On the morning of Nov. 6, prior to final House of Representatives debate on the Consumer Protection Bill (H.R. 7575), two White House agents sat in the office of Congressman Pete McCloskey, R-Calif. THEY WERE trying to persuade McCloskey to drop his amendment to the bill that would have consolidated consumer advocacy efforts in the…
For over 100 years the slogan, “the bigger, the better” has guided the business community. Even today, few executives would question the validity of such a slogan. Banks with assets exceeding $30 billion, oil companies with sales over $30 billion annually and insurance companies with millions of policyholders are believed to be big because they…
How do large American and European food and drug corporations affect consumers abroad, say, in South America? Robert Ledogar, a soft-spoken former Roman Catholic priest with a master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, set out two years ago to find out. BACKED by a grant from Consumers Union, Ledogar journeyed, observed and researched…
There is nothing that upsets corporate and governmental bureaucrats more than an effective proposal on behalf of consumers. So, expectedly, Gerald Ford, his golfing partners from the auto, steel and oil industries and dozens of trade associations in Washington are straining to stop the establishment of a tiny consumer protection agency to fight consumer abuses…
One of the surest ways to lose your job in the federal government is to do your job, even if it makes waves. Ask David Shaw, a 38-year-old statistician for the Bureau of the Census. A few years ago he became interested in how the Census Bureau could collect more information for local neighborhood and…