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1. Think Like a Commoner: A Short Introduction to the Life of the Commons by David Bollier (New Society Publishers) David Bollier is a leading writer and advocate for all those real-life commons – what we own, from the public lands, public airwaves, online information and local civic assets. He calls the commons a…
December 26, 2013 Jim McNerney, CEO The Boeing Company 100 North Riverside Chicago, IL 60606 Dear Mr. McNerney: The squeeze that you and Boeing are putting on your machinist workers’ pensions, pay scales and your stance on other labor issues regarding the assembling of the new 777X airliners is unseemly for several reasons. First, consider…
Two distinctly different Americans with distinctly similar, independent thinking and progressive values passed away last week. The great accounting professor Abraham Briloff (age 96) who relentlessly and brilliantly took apart the failures of his profession to insist on honest and ethical corporate accounting, and Tom Laughlin (age 82), the jolting producer and star of the…
The word “inequality” is much in vogue these days. We hear almost daily about the inequality of wealth, income and wages between the richest top 2 or 3 percent of people and the majority of the country’s wage earners. But not much attention is given and not many marches and other protests are addressing the…
Shareholders are the majority owners of many of the world’s largest, most powerful corporations. Despite this fact, the muscle of shareholder ownership is often far too soft to affect the actions of greedy corporate decision-makers. Shareholders are relatively powerless to protect their share values from decline under questionable or outright poor corporate management. This is…
By Ralph Nader and Lori Wallach The standards ensuring the safety of our food, medicines and cars, the energy and climate policies needed to save our planet, and the financial regulations designed to prevent banks from creating another crisis all involve decisions that should be made in open, democratic venues. Yet the Obama administration is…
Insurance, art, architecture, civil liberties, auto safety, think tanks, peace, free thinkers, political candidates, marijuana, his alma mater Princeton University — these and other varied interests drove the inquiring career of the late Peter Lewis, chairman of the board of Progressive Insurance, who passed away at age 80 last month. He interacted with many people…
Those of us who worked with an energetic corps of Harvard Law students thought October 24, 2013 would be a galvanizing, historic day at that training ground for corporate law firms. The students left no stone unturned in promoting a full day of presentations by leading, experienced justice fighters sharing the urgency to act in…
“Over the generations, Peter Lewis was, is and will be – through his many enduring legacies and generosities to a wide range of human betterment from civil liberties to the arts, from responsive politics to higher education facilities. His passing is the nation’s loss, especially when it comes to the individual’s freedom from arbitrary abuses…
November 21, 2013 Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe United States Postal Service 475 L’Enfant Plaza SW Washington, D.C. 20260-0010 Re: Revenue Expanding Activities Dear Mr. Donahoe, Last week the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) released its financial results for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2013. Despite some promising indicators, the USPS ended the year with a…