In the Public Interest

The ever-widening embrace of the credit card is Convenience. Every day on the nation’s television screens and in newspapers and magazines, the credit card is promoted and the message is Convenience in many directions. “Charge It” is the password of the computerized economy on its wax toward making money little more than an electric pulse…

Prompted by the twentieth anniversary this month of Unsafe At Any Speed, I looked back at one of our country’s more preventable daily tragedies and saw very considerable progress. In 1945, there were 47,000 fatalities on the roads which amounted to 5.3 deaths per 100 million miles of vehicle travel. In 1984 with a far…

Remarkably enough, I have come across a reform-minded Professor of Economics who believes that consumers should have a voice in the formation of U.S. bunking policy by the twelve Federal Reserve district banks around the country. The name of this rare scholar is Thomas Havrilesky of Duke University. He has just published a report which…

“Retirement,” says the 95 year old, active journalist-author, George Seldes, “is the dirtiest ten letter word in the English language.” If so, it is a dirty word that is mandatory at a certain age for many jobs in western societies. The more industrially advanced an economy becomes, the more its people are put out to…

The Cadillac Division of General Motors fancies its cars as competitors with Mercedes. This fall the executives who run Cadillac will not be happy. In early November, Mercedes will announce that it will install as standard equipment a driver side air bag (up to now it has been optional) on all its vehicles sold in…

It is doubtful whether there has been anything like the present insurance industry’s commercial liability price spiral in American economic history. If you think your auto insurance policy premium is going up fast, take a look at what these policyholders are going through: Offshore Boat Corp., a small Miami boat manufacturer had their premium Q0…

Women pour about $10 billion a year into beauty shops and salons in this country to make them look and smell better. Sitting or reclining in their chairs, they are worked on closely by tens of thousands of people who cut, shampoo and dye their hair and paint their faces and nails with designs and…

Ronald Reagan, meet Isaac Asimov! With over three hundred books to his credit, Asimov is arguably the nation’s leading science writer. In a rare public protest and call to action, Asimov has taken a stand against Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative or proposed Star Wars project. His letter, mailed earlier this month to hundreds of…

He was born in Buffalo in 1910 and has practiced medicine in China for fifty two years. He is Dr. George Hatem, but to millions of Chinese who view him as a hero of their Revolution, he is known as Ma Heide. A lot of history has transpired since Dr. Hatem graduated from The University…

If before, during or after receiving a medical or dental x-ray, you have wondered if you were overexposed to radiation, consider the unrequited crusade of one Senator Jennings Randolph (D-WV) who retired in 1985. For thirteen years the venerable Senator urged legislation to establish minimum standards for the accreditation of x-ray machine operations. He finally…