In the Public Interest

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…

Corporate over-regulation of the daily lives of Americans is growing fast. With business lobbies focusing relentless attention on government regulation, which after sixteen years of Reagan, Bush and Clinton is in a state of slumber, isn’t it time to take a look at corporate regulation? Corporate regulation, as any small business franchisee knows, is imposed…

Can the late evening television news get any worse? I put this question recently to some television news reporters who rolled their eyes and together said “not much worse.” Three national consulting firms have convinced most local television news executives that the formula of pursuing tragedy (street crime and natural disasters) and trivia (chitchat, fluff…

The slash and burn approach of the 104th Congress has produced a long list of foolish, counter productive and, often, dangerous cuts in the federal budget. But, few top the irresponsibility of the budget cutters who have applied a blunt meat axe to the General Accounting Office (GAO), the only full-time non-partisan watchdog over waste…

Remember when the energy crisis was page one material and every politician had to take a position regarding this national urgency. Not any more. You hardly hear anyone in public life mention the issue. Certainly Clinton and Dole are not campaigning on any proposals. Well, except for gasoline lines, the reasons for the nation’s concerns…

The feisty British Safety Council (BSC) is not like its counterpart, the corporate-cowed National Safety Council in this country. There is and has been one reason for the difference — a World War II veteran by the name of James Tye. The focused Tye, the flamboyant Tye, the indefatigable Tye built, ran and inspired the…