Mitt Romney famously said during his most recent bid for the presidency: “Corporations are people, my friend.” Perhaps nothing else better surmises the state of our country — even the state of our culture — than a prominent politician running for the presidency openly advancing such a flawed opinion. It is no secret that corporations … Read more
By Ralph Nader
Summer is an ideal season for jolting your mind into action by expanding your reading horizons. So shut off the computer and the television, put away the various gadgets, close your email and pick up a good book. There are plenty of entertaining choices for your reading pleasure, but the following titles are ones that I have enjoyed. They all address the serious pursuit of justice/happiness side of the written word.
By Ralph Nader When one considers Walmart’s company slogan — “Save money. Live better.” — it almost seems as if they are referring to their corporation’s big shareholders — the super-rich Walton family — rather than their employees or the communities they squeeze. After all, Walmart is the same company that has recently made headlines … Read more
By Ralph Nader
What happens when the rule of law increasingly bows to the whims and violations of unaccountable public officials?
In the United States, we are seeing the rule of law eroded by those at the top levels of our government. We are witnessing the dismantling of the guiding principles of justice and the rule of law. Our legal system has been gamed to preferentially serve the needs of the few rather than those of the many.
The Center for Study of Responsive Law released today a new report titled “The Rise and Fall (and Rise?) of Texas Trial Lawyers.” The sixty-six-page report focuses on the attacks on the civil justice system in Texas over the last two decades or so. The report examines the gutting of worker’s compensation, corporate supreme court … Read more
By Ralph Nader and Jeff Musto
A single minimum wage worker who has worked continually for the federal minimum wage since 1968 has been deprived of over a quarter million dollars in wages over the course of those 45 years. $293,735.12 to be exact. A new white paper released last week, Lost Wages, revealed this fact.
By Ralph Nader
Told you so.
Some might deem it celebratory to utter this phrase, as if one is boasting about their own clever foresight. But when it comes to serious matters — matters that affect millions of people, their jobs, their health, and their livelihoods, there is no satisfaction in being right about predicting bad conditions. It’s much better to predict good news. But as it now stands in our country, many problems that emerged years ago have developed into sheer catastrophes, despite the many warnings of forward-thinking experts, scholars and observers.
Lost Wages: Over a Quarter Million Reasons to Increase the Inflation-Gutted Minimum Wage: New Report Reveals the Amount of Wages a Minimum Wage Worker Has Been Deprived of Since 1968 June 13, 2013 A new report, Lost Wages, released today by the Center for Study of Responsive Law’s TimeForARaise.org project, revealed that a single minimum … Read more
By Ralph Nader “We don’t use tax gimmicks” said Apple CEO Tim Cook this past Tuesday during a speech at a tech conference. This statement came just one week after congressional investigators released a report that documented how Apple, using a vast array of offshore subsidiaries, avoided paying their share in taxes to Uncle Sam. … Read more
By Ralph Nader A bipartisan legislative movement toward legalizing the growing of industrial hemp is finally on the rise. Last week, the Vermont General Assembly voted to lift a state statute that banned the growing of industrial hemp. While this, if enacted, would allow Vermont farmers to grow hemp under state law, it is still … Read more