In the Public Interest

In the pantheon of human beings possessed of indomitable spirit, make room for Vivian Lee Hobbs — mother of three children, lawyer specializing in pension, health and employee benefit issues, active in bar association work, speaker and advocate for disability rights and a quadriplegic. On June 17, 1972, a sunny afternoon, Vivian’s life changed. At…

To hear the assembled state attorneys general at the announcement of their agreement (which requires Congressional approval) with the tobacco industry on June 20, 1997, it was a one way surrender by the giant tobacco companies, Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds and others. To hear from Wall Street, stocks of the tobacco companies have been rising…

A veritable lobbying blitzkrieg by corporations at the nation’s state legislatures this year is accelerating the dismantling of our democracy and consumer rights. The national press seems largely oblivious to what has been going on. Using pretexts such as “meeting the global competition,” “law reform,” “deregulation,” “restructuring” and other soothing phrases, these business lobbyists are…

A new multinational bulldozer against democratic practices and benefits for regular human beings is being built quietly in closed-door negotiations by representatives of 29 wealthiest nations under the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Sometime later this year, the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) will be proposed by OECD to their respective governments for…

Paul Allen from the Seattle area is the world’s 8th richest man with over $10 billion in wealth — mostly from Microsoft stock. There are days when this booming stock goes up so that it increases Allen’s wealth by over $300 in one day! This is a major reason why more and more taxpayers in…

Battles can rage in Congress over budgets, health care, government ethics and a multitude of other headline grabbing issues, but the Banking Committee of the U. S. House of Representatives just plugs along year after year in splendid isolation trying to meet the wish lists of the financial industry. The Committee’s efforts this year are…

About seventy years ago, the Oklahoman, humorist Will Rogers, called Congress “the best money can buy.” On May 13th at the Washington Hilton Hotel, a stream of limousines swept into the driveway to unload corporate lobbyists who poured a record $11 million dollars into Republican Party coffers. Marinated between the representatives of the auto, chemical,…

Alan Greenspan’s decision to raise interest rates last month produced an unintended consequence–the awakening of the Democrats on the House Banking Committee. Led by Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the Democratic minority is demanding that Chairman Jim Leach launch full scale hearings on Greenspan’s action and its impact on jobs and consumers. The Democrats–with the…

American history books rarely give due recognition to the importance of the not-for-profit institutions in our society. As a capitalistic society, our country must have had good reasons to spawn huge numbers of not-for-profit banks, insurance companies, hospitals, colleges and myriads of social service associations from the blood banks to housing and other consumer cooperatives.…

The closed door high level negotiations for the great Tobacco settlement are underway. State Attorneys General, who are suing the tobacco companies to recover Medicaid costs of treating smoking-related illnesses, are at the table. So are the CEOs of the big companies, including Philip Morris and RJR Nabisco and their corporate attorneys. So too are…