In the Public Interest

The Federal Reserve does most of its business behind closed doors. It lives off interest payments on Treasury bonds acquired in carrying out monetary policy and, thus, avoids the scrutiny of the Congressional appropriations process. Much of its operation, as well, is outside the audit authority of Congress’ watchdog, the General Accounting Office. Members of…

Corporate hypocrisy is rampant in the United States. Profit rates for American businesses hit a 30 year high. Compensation for chief executive officers of corporations was 173 times the wages of the average worker. The stock market continued to set records, ultimately breaking the supposedly unreachable mark of 6,000 on the Dow-Jones Industrial Average. Yet,…

In the 1970s, reformers successfully fought for rules to ensure that the making of the nation’s laws would be carried out in sessions open to the public, not behind closed doors of Congressional Committees. The reforms were supposed to mean open hearings and open meetings to consider and vote amendments to bills as well as…

The recent announcement of the $100 million fine slapped on agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) for price fixing put corporate crime — one of the important but under-reported issues of our time — at the top of the news hour and in the morning newspaper headlines. If past history is any guide, however, the…

The Commission on Presidential Debates! Sounds like an official agency of or appointed by the government. It is neither. The Commission is an arm of the Republican and Democratic Parties through and through from its co-chairmen (former heads of their respective Parties) on down. The commission is funded by corporations (Philip Morris, Ford, R.J. Reynolds,…

Apart from the call for job formation, labor issues, such as strengthening the collective bargaining or job safety laws, rarely receive much attention by candidates for national office. Corporate pension plans, funded, underfunded or looted, are another example of this glaring omission. “Pension security is looming large in public opinion polls, but politicians keep ducking…

Twenty years ago I met Robert Clampitt, then in middle age, who had a vision that successfully occupied him for the rest of his life. He wanted the media, in his words, “to rethink dramatically how they cover children and children’s issues. Like canaries in a coal mine, the voices of American children have for…

With the selection of economist-activist, Pat Choate by Ross Perot as his vice-presidential running mate, the issues of the controversial NAFTA and GATT trade agreements may be receiving greater visibility in this fall’s Presidential campaigns. The two major party candidates — Clinton and Dole — supported these autocratic systems of international governance over our democratic…

For citizens who are vague about what money from business lobbies to political campaigns will buy, try silence! Here is a list of subjects over-ripe for candidates attention except for the dollar-sealed politicians for whom the slogan is “mum’s the word:” 1. The Federal Reserve is the banking industry’s government in residence. It is the…

Chicago: Strolling through the walkways and inside the giant United Center, where the Democratic Party convened last week to nominate the Clinton/Gore ticket, one has to recall Shakespeare’s title Much Ado About Nothing Fifteen thousand members of the media, hundreds of corporate hospitality occasions and a couple thousand Party delegates came together to observe a…