In the Public Interest

“Welfare reform” is becoming the talk of Washington’s politicians from the White House to Congress. Clinton wants to end welfare “as we know it” by getting recipients jobs within a reasonable time. Some Republicans want to eliminate welfare, following some of their comfortable theorists, and let the misfortunate children and adults be taken care of…

To western corporations, GATT the revised global trade agreement heading for Congressional debate in mid-1994, means more protection of their “intellectual property rights” or inventions around the world. To millions of Indian farmers, GATT means intellectual piracy of their knowledge and agricultural knowhow by multinational corporations in the West. With virtually no reporting by the…

To many Americans “tuberculosis” sounds like a word out of the past. For our country, it was, but no longer is. Cases of TB have doubled in the U.S. to about 25,000 a year since 1985 and the dreaded drug-resistant strains of this disease are increasing also. To much of the rest of the world,…

What is going on at the U.S. Patent Office? We’d all better find out. Ever since the Patent Office first granted in 1988 a patent on a living animal — the transgenic mouse developed by a DuPont-funded genetic engineer — the place seems to be going haywire in what it is giving monopoly ownership power…

Benjamin J. Stein is a serious actor who has played in made­for-tv movies and other theatricals. He is also the leading writer and analyst of corporate financial crimes in the country. Wall Street doesn’t like him; he is too insistent that owners of pensions, shareholders and other small investors, such as holders of savings accounts,…

The Christmas toy buying season is here. And the chief concern of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), it seems, is not to greatly improve its toy safety duties; it is how to respond to consumer groups annual criticism of the agency’s dereliction. Each year, toy safety lawyer, Edward M. Swartz of Boston, is invited…

Saskatoon, Sask.–“There is nothing like this in the States,” I remarked to Wes Fine Day, the Cree interpretive guide at Wanuskewin Heritage Park, a 250 acre living memory of the original peoples of the Northern Plains. “There is nothing like this in the world,” replied Fine Day as he started to weave the historical embrace…

This is the story of Michael Waldman, our former colleague, writer, advocate and corporate critic during the latter Reagan and Bush years in Washington, D.C. To see him go after the Savings and Loan crooks, the corporate power brokers and the corporate-indentured White House was a delight. He was factual, concise and seemingly sincere. I…

The day after the Gore-Perot debate, great big baskets of goodies from the Grocery Manufacturers of America (GMA) began arriving at the Congressional offices of each of your Senators and Representatives. Festooned with bright ribbons, these baskets contained brand name potato chips, crackerjacks, spaghetti, brownies, macaroni and soaps, razors and chewing gum. A large card…

Edmonton, Alberta — The mood of Canadians in this former oil-boom Province borders on the grim and disgruntled. The provincial government has announced a 20% cut in the education budget which has provoked an unusual demonstration before the Parliament building of several thousand objecting high school students. It seems everything is being cut back except…