By Ralph Nader
Here are some questions to consider: What do the Wall Street firms do that is so vital for the national interest? How does speculation contribute to our society? It’s time for Wall Street to step up and provide some answers.
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The Regulatory Nullification and the Cruelty of Big Business
By Ralph Nader
It’s time to start paying close attention to the mechanisms of the deregulation machine. For the past 30 years, the business lobbies have pushed Congress and the executive branch to disassemble the regulatory system that has protected us from the worst excesses of Wall Street and Big Business. The catastrophic effects of this dismantling are well known — the misbehavior of Wall Street brought us the financial collapse, the global recession, and the dominance of the largest banks being both “Too Big to Fail” and their culpable executives “Too Big to Jail”.
Enlist the Enlightened Super-Rich!
By Ralph Nader
You often hear progressives bemoaning the massive war chests of the right-wing funders, particularly after their successful backing of the boisterous Tea Party movement. But a common mistake made by the left is not adequately focusing on cultivating their own likeminded super-rich to provide the necessary resources to advance their own noble causes. It would only take a few enlightened mega-billionaires to provide the major funding needed to shift power from the few to the many and to get the ball rolling on long overdue, fundamental solutions to our country’s biggest problems.
The Cruel Gap Between CEO Pay and the Stagnant Minimum Wage
By Ralph Nader
Walmart CEO Mike Duke makes approximately $11,000 an hour. Think about that — $11,000 every hour. Think about an hour of your day, the tasks you accomplish, and the compensation you receive from your employer. If you are an average American worker, you could add up all your daily work hours and that of your close friends, family, and fellow coworkers and it still won’t even come close to what Mike Duke makes in a single hour of his work day. He was the 46th highest paid CEO in America in 2012, according to Forbes.
Getting Tough on Devastating Corporate Crime
By Ralph Nader
Politicians looking to bolster their appeal to voters like to talk about being “tough on crime.” They think this creates a winning public image. And why wouldn’t it? Anyone who has ever seen an old western knows that the bandits in the black hats are bad and the lawmen in the white hats are good. Consequently, many elected officials, desperate to be perceived as white-hatters, carry the “tough on crime” banner. A result is the United States now has more incarcerated people than any other country in the world, including China and Russia. Imagine — over 2 million Americans are currently serving time in prison.
President Obama — Get Tough on Corporate Welfare
By Ralph Nader Ask anti-government ideologues about “welfare” and they are likely to tell you all about an increasingly large group of Americans who are dependent on government handouts. They might refer to the portion of the population who Mitt Romney famously called “the 47 percent,” those who consider themselves to be “victims” entitled to … Read more
The Rule of Law or the Rule of Men?
By Ralph Nader Last week, the State Department reassigned the official responsible for the “diplomatic issues” pertaining to the closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison. This was a telling sign that the Obama administration is abandoning its long-held but little-fought-for promise of closing that notorious facility where a majority of prisoners proved to be innocent, … Read more
The Power of Government Purchasing
By Ralph Nader In America, the term “innovation” is often exclusively attributed to the profitable successes of private businesses — specifically big corporations like Apple, Google and Microsoft — which are considered by many to be the purveyors of all technological advancement. Recall Mitt Romney repeatedly shouting “government doesn’t create jobs” during a presidential debate … Read more
Banding Together
By Ralph Nader Technology is advancing at a rapid pace. Smartphones, tablets, laptops, high-speed internet, high-definition screens, GPS devices, and other innovations have markedly changed the way many Americans spend their time. Think of all the tools and devices that have developed in the past decade alone that make it easier to find travel information, … Read more
Who Can Stop the People?
By Ralph Nader If your next-door neighbors were the U.S. Congress, spending your income and using their power to influence your life, would you pay close attention to them? Over the past several weeks, Congress has been the focal point of much controversy for its inability to come together on a comprehensive fiscal cliff deal … Read more