In the Public Interest

Everyone has heard of Alcoholics Anonymous. Maybe it is time for Greed Anonymous to shake the addiction out of the Truly Greedy Wealthies in this country. Such a voluntary society may attract self-doubting zillionnaires into a higher quality of life for themselves and many others. This musing came while perusing the latest issue of the…

If there is anything more revealing about a government’s abuse of authority than being able to ignore accurate media exposure, it is being able to shrug off public condemnation from within government itself. The Reagan government has taken this imperviousness to new depths. Government reports continue to pour out documenting reckless, wasteful and callous behavior…

On the same day, Monday, August 1, 1988, two different views appeared in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times about the state of the American economy. First, here is political commentator, Mark Helprin, writing in the Journal: “after the longest peacetime economic expansion in American history, record employment and a two-point drop…

A curious paradox is playing in the area of medical incompetence. More reports are documenting the growing scope of medical malpractice and its patient casualties, while more medical associations are lobbying state legislatures to make it more difficult for patients to take doctors who harmed them to court and win an adequate award. Hovering like…

Appearing on ABC’s NIGHTLINE PROGRAM during the last day of the Democratic National Convention, Roone Arledge, president of ABC News appeared uncomfortable with his power and disingenuous in his explanations. He had been quoted the previous day as saying the Democratic convention was so boring that he was thinking about cutting back his network’s future…

Get ready for the bankers and politicians to push for the biggest taxpayer bailout in American history next year. Reagan’s nominal bank regulators are telling Congress that there are 515 insolvent savings and loans associations and another 300 to 500 nearly insolvent thrift institutions in these United States. Their doors are still open for business…

“What is the duty of an insurer to the public when it has knowledge of serious product defects which are likely to cause injury’?” This was the question that Aetna claims attorney, William D. McGehee, asked in a letter to an associate sent in December 1981. Mr. McGehee was not speculating. The context for his…

Imagine an organization, at the state and national levels, composed of 29 million car owners who contribute over $1 billion a year in dues to “champion the rights of car owners.” Then imagine the directors and bureaucrats who autocratically run this organization siding with the auto manufacturers and the auto insurance industry on many issues…

Our public expectations of the big business community in this country are much too low. Given their power over markets, jobs, government, media and other institutions, together with the potent technologies at their command, they should be held to higher standards of behavior, foresight and delivery. The news of the past fortnight reinforced this observation…

Pundits, commentators and investment analysts are pondering the effects of last week’s federal jury verdict of $400,000 against Liggett & Meyers in the cigarette-cancer case. By concentrating solely on whether the victory will lead to many more successful cases against tobacco companies, they are missing an important consequence of that historic day in Newark, New…