In the Public Interest

Unlike the sleazy headlines in some tabloid newspapers, the Detroit News often has sensational headlines on page one that reflect important, substantive stories. This certainly was the case on January 4, 2000 with the lead story blazing the headline “Report: Edison overbills $248M.” The “Report” refers to a study done by Moody’s Investors Service for…

The Y2K computer problem, in an increasingly computer- reliant world, will begin to reveal its dimensions, small or large, on January 1, 2000. While the various predictions have ranged all over the proverbial lot, from catastrophes to glitches here and there, the cost of fixing an entirely preventable situation in the United States alone will…

The information age, we have been told repeatedly, is the signal characteristic of the modern political economy. Technology will liberate and advance the voices and impact of all people as it decentralizes power, say numerous books and essays. Well, let’s examine those articles of faith in two areas — that of congressional information and federal…

Increasingly, the citizens of Toledo, Ohio, are making connections between their daily lives and corporate welfare payouts, thanks to the recent provocations of DaimlerChrysler, which is sitting on $20 billion in cash, and its buddy Toledo Mayor, Carty Finkbeiner, who is sitting on a financially crumbling city government. The residents are seeing the emergence of…

The media called it “the battle of Seattle” last week. Certainly it was clear once again that the media often waits for street demonstrations before conveying the message of the demonstrators — in this case composed of labor, church groups, environmental and consumer organizations, family farm delegations, human rights advocates, students against overseas sweat-shops and…

An elderly woman is visited at home by a window salesman who talks her into buying 10 windows for $10,000. She signs a number of pieces of paper, including the sales contract, the financing agreement, and a form on which she consents to receive the contract and all notices relating to the sale over the…

The historic Microsoft monopoly trial took an odd twist on November 19th when federal Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson secured the agreement of the Justice Department and Microsoft to accept mediation by 7th Circuit chief Judge Richard Posner. For most jurists, being a chief judge of a busy federal circuit court of appeals would be a…

Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve — an agency that serves purposes which officials in other western countries would call “central banking functions” — must keep saying to himself these days that “It doesn’t get any better than this.” Here he is, head of the most powerful federal regulatory agency in the government and…

When it comes to the tens of billions of dollars of annual health care fraud that all of you eventually pay for, the sophistication of the private criminal enterprisers is ahead of the government’s law enforcers. The usual figure for the amount of billing fraud and abuse that the government estimates is 10 percent of…

The financial services industry spent millions on public relations, opinion polls and advertising to promote legislation in the current Congress which would allow the merger of banks, securities firms and insurance companies under common ownership in financial conglomerates. All this in addition to the more than $30 million in campaign contributions that can be traced…