In the Public Interest

Ever wonder why radio generally has become so canned, flat and insipid, bereft of local news, and stuffed with commercials, mercantile values, and the same old, tired junk? Not to mention the downright offensiveness of Howard Stern and the other shock jocks? First, for years, more than 90 percent of all radio time is composed…

The first-ever Congressional hearings critical of corporate welfare the hundreds of billions of dollars given annually in subsidies, bailouts, giveaways, tax escapes, etc. were held June 30th by House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich (R-Ohio). And most of the major media organizations did not show up. But C-SPAN did and relayed a remarkable array of…

It happens week after week in the nation’s capitol and often goes unnoticed by the media. After suffering a family tragedy, due to a preventable act of corporate negligence a group of Americans find one another in their grief and travel to Washington, hold a press conference with a supportive safety group, and visit their…

The last hours of a state legislative session is a paradise for avaricious corporate interest groups. This is the time when they can sneak through, without public debate or even public notice, some of the most craven laws against consumer or small-taxpayer interests ever enacted. Among the lobbies that ply this just-before-midnight stealth strategy is…

On June 9, Connecticut became another state in a long list of victims of the real estate industry. On this last day of the session, in the last hours, the Senate passed House Bill 6981 by suspending its normal rules and tacking this anti-consumer legislation on to another bill as an amendment. The bill’s sneaky…

The Senate Commerce Committee recently held a hearing to consider a new bill that is designed to replace state auto insurance laws with a no-fault system backed by a coalition of insurance companies led by State Farm. The bill, S.B. 837, can be simply explained this way: Consumers would give up their right to compensation…

Back in 1969, the Nixon administration settled a civil antitrust suit against the Big Three automakers that charged them with conspiring since 1953 to “eliminate all competition among themselves in the research, development, manufacture, and installation of motor vehicle air pollution control equipment.” (The Johnson administration originally brought the civil suit in 1968, after having…

Albert A. Foer is scratching his head these days. As president of the American Antitrust Institute, he is puzzled why Congress keeps the budgets so low for the federal cops on the anti-monopolistic, price-fixing, corporate beat. Not only do the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have the duty to stop and…

Twenty years ago, consumer advocate J. Robert Hunter studied insurance rate filings in the District of Columbia and found that, other things being equal, the same consumer could pay as little as $350 or as much as $900 a year for the same coverage from different companies. Comparative shopping for auto insurance is a good…

Although New York City owns some 10,000 empty lots throughout the city, in a triumph of impulse over judgment, Mayor Rudy Giuliani has announced the pending sale to commercial developers of 12 lots that support community gardens. Apparently the mayor wants to add to the city’s coffers by placing these small oases of productive greenery…