Opinions/Editorials

The relentless expansion of corporate control over our political economy has proven nearly immune to daily reporting by the mainstream media. Corporate crime, fraud and abuse have become like the weather; everyone is talking about the storm but no one seems able to do anything about it. This is largely because expected accountability mechanisms —…

Dear Senator: Even as veteran observers of the Congressional appropriations process, we are shocked, and outraged, by the provision in the Defense Appropriations bill that would have the Air Force lease Boeing 767s at a price dramatically higher than the cost of direct purchase. We are writing to urge you to take to the floor…

The judge’s finding of facts in the Microsoft case are a devastating indictment of the company. The judge found Microsoft responsible for a litany of anticompetitive and illegal practices that have harmed consumers. The 207-page decision is a textbook on the use of monopoly power. The court found that Microsoft strong-armed personal computer makers and…

The events were depressingly familiar. After the crash of Egyptair Flight 990, the National Transportation Safety Board rushed into action, marshaling people and equipment and spending millions of dollars to recover as much of the airplane as possible in order to find out the cause of the crash. The events were depressingly familiar. After the…

“All in all, I think we hit the jackpot,” President Ronald Reagan told a Rose Garden audience of congressmen and lobbyists celebrating the deregulation of the savings and loan industry on Oct. 15, 1982. Now Congress is icing down the champagne again in anticipation of the signing of a new and much more grandiose deregulation…

New projections of a federal budget surplus have left Washington abuzz with proposals on how the government should allocate hundreds of billions of dollars. Strikingly absent from the debate are recommendations to revitalize our commonwealth by investing in a public works program. At no time in recent history has a program to construct, rebuild or…

“This is a free-market economy. Welcome to the era after communism.” So said Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in explaining his foiled plans to sell 112 community gardens to private developers — destroying urban green space that helps build community. But while Mayor Giuliani may be tough on gardeners and poor people who receive welfare, his free-market…

Everyone who uses a computer or depends on computers has an interest in seeing Microsoft’s anticompetitive and anticonsumer practices curtailed by antitrust authorities.Microsoft’s claim that it’s defending its right to innovate is a cruel joke in an industry that sees its best innovators attacked by the company’s anticompetitive actions. Microsoft’s agenda isn’t innovation, it’s imitation,…

While running for office, Bill Clinton said he had big plans for “fundamental change” in how our government and economy work. But as members of Congress leave Washington and return to the states it is clear that the president, his Cabinet, and his allies in Congress all fail to understand that no significant change will…