In the Public Interest

One of the Clinton Administration’s more outlandish giveaways to corporate interests was its decision six years ago to provide free deposit insurance to about 92 percent of the nation’s commercial banks. The move represented a five billion dollar annual bonanza to the banking industry and billions of dollars of new risk for taxpayers. Before she…

Decades of consumer advocacy have built an impressive, if still inadequate, array of consumer guarantees in the common law, statutory allocations of rights to consumers — governmental and non-governmental — for consumer interests. It is unclear however, if the integrity and effectiveness of these norms and structures of consumer protection will continue in the digital…

Once more a report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has raised big questions about how much of the federal government’s generous subsidy to the housing finance giants?Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–finds its way into housing, particularly affordable housing for low and moderate income families. In 1996, CBO estimated that Fannie and Freddie received $6.5…

At a time of rising customer complaints, sagging airline profits and cutbacks by major carriers, Southwest Airlines stands above the pack as brash and adventuresome as it was 30 years ago when Rollin King and Herb Kelleher launched the company as a three-airplane enterprise carrying passengers between Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. From that modest…

Walter D. Miller, 70, was pumping gas into his vehicle on July 17th,when he collapsed and never revived. His hometown, Winsted, Connecticut, lost more than the owner of the 40-year-old Miller Air Conditioning and Heating business. The community lost a many-splendored public citizen — a pillar of local democracy and service. There were times when…

Most corporations measure their worth by their bottom line—profits. For some companies, like Working Assets Long Distance and Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, profits, however, don’t begin to measure their valueto the public and communities. Working Assets, for example, donates one percent of its long-distance phone revenue to progressive non-profit organizations working for peace, human…

Senior citizens long have been targets of cruel scams perpetrated by credit merchants, fast-talking telemarketers, fraudulent charities and other sleazy operators who scheme to separate retirees from their meager pensions and savings. But these devious “backdoor” merchants may not be the seniors worst nightmare. That title might be better attached to the “respectable” white collar…

In our nation there is an accelerating obsession with public opinion polls, standardized tests, employee evaluation systems and a multitude of numerical measurements of every aspect of human existence. Television and newspaper coverage of national elections has become little more than a blizzard of polling data. Education policy is influenced heavily by tests which purport…

The 180 million Americans with health insurance got a victory last month when the U. S. Senate adopted a long-sought set of rights for patients. The legislation establishes federal standards for private health insurance, including that provided through Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs), and allows patients to sue in federal and state courts to enforce their…

California often serves as the nation’s laboratory for new public policy initiatives. Some of the initiatives have been disasters. This is particularly true in the area of regulation where California has bounced from pro-consumer initiatives to “free-market” solutions favored by the state’s corporate powers. In 1996, California’s Republican Governor Pete Wilson led a successful bi-partisan…