In the Public Interest

Every year about 120,000 children experience toy-related injuries severe enough for hospital treatment. And every December, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in Washington is accused of turning its back on dangerous toys that maim children. The principal accusers are the Americans for Democratic Action and Edward M. Swartz, a Boston trial lawyer and child…

Less than an hour’s drive south of Nashville, Tenn., around the town of Columbia and the hamlet of Spring Hill, the euphoria that greeted GM’s Saturn plant announcement this summer is giving way to the reality of Saturn’s demands on these communities. GM, as usual, is playing hardball. The giant auto company is determined to…

Nashville, Tennessee — Less than an hour’s drive south, around the town of Columbia and the hamlet of Spring Hill, the euphoria which greeted GM’s Saturn plant announcement this summer is giving way to the reality of Saturn’s demands on these communities. GM, as usual, is playing hardball. The giant auto company is determined to…

Winsted, CT — The origins; of the Winsted Memorial Hospital began with a $250 bequest by young Adelyn H. Howard who died an invalid in July 1898. Last month, a growing number of citizens concluded that this health institution, serving a town of 10,000 people and surrounding hamlets, made a decision that marked the beginning…

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…