In the Public Interest

In searching for models of superior consumer perform­ance across this land, I have come across two con­sumer cooperatives in Michigan. One deals with auto repair and the other with optical services. Both are nonprofit but are run on a “businesslike” basis to keep competent staff oper­ating efficiently. As many consumer-com­plaints about auto repair shops and…

The word spread like wildfire throughout the community of professional thieves: Fords are easier to steal than other recent car models. NOW, in response to questions, the Ford Motor Co. admits it. William Brown of Ford’s Washington staff says, “There’s no denying the numbers. The ratio is some­what higher on Fords . . . .…

How often have you heard politicians support “tax reform”? Almost everybody in Washington wants some form of “tax re­form” — so much so that the phrase itself has be­come a semantic coverup for carving further loop­holes in the tax laws. CONSIDER what is transpiring in Congress with the so-called Tax Re­form Act of 1975 (H.R.…

Question: Who is a lead­ing candidate for the title of “The Best Friend of the U.S. Shareholder”? Answer: Stanley Sporkin. chief of the Enforcement Division of the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is Uncle Sam’s watchdog against corporate financial manipulations. SPORKIN? Who ever heard of Sporkin? Ask a growing number of big busi­nessmen and their…

Attention William Simon, William F. Buckley, Milton Friedman, American Enter­- prise Institute and other economic conservatives! Why are you so calm before the gathering storm of atomic socialism? WHERE IS your ideological fervor for free-market enterprise when giant mis­managed corporations are pushing Uncle Sam (alias the small taxpayer) to bail them out by socializing their…

On the morning of Nov. 6, prior to final House of Representatives debate on the Consumer Protection Bill (H.R. 7575), two White House agents sat in the of­fice of Congressman Pete McCloskey, R-Calif. THEY WERE trying to persuade McCloskey to drop his amendment to the bill that would have consoli­dated consumer advocacy efforts in the…

For over 100 years the slogan, “the bigger, the bet­ter” has guided the busi­ness community. Even today, few execu­tives would question the validity of such a slogan. Banks with assets exceed­ing $30 billion, oil compa­nies with sales over $30 bil­lion annually and insurance companies with millions of policyholders are believed to be big because they…

How do large American and European food and drug corporations affect consumers abroad, say, in South America? Robert Ledogar, a soft-spoken for­mer Roman Catholic priest with a master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, set out two years ago to find out. BACKED by a grant from Consumers Union, Ledogar journeyed, observed and re­searched…

There is nothing that upsets corporate and gov­ernmental bureaucrats more than an effective proposal on behalf of con­sumers. So, expectedly, Gerald Ford, his golfing partners from the auto, steel and oil industries and dozens of trade associations in Wash­ington are straining to stop the establishment of a tiny consumer protection agen­cy to fight consumer abuses…

One of the surest ways to lose your job in the federal government is to do your job, even if it makes waves. Ask David Shaw, a 38-year-old statis­tician for the Bureau of the Census. A few years ago he became interested in how the Census Bureau could collect more information for local neighbor­hood and…