Ralph Nader's Blog, page 51

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May 9, 2018

Dear Member of Congress:

Colossal CEO pay harms employees, impedes economic growth, and is a major cause of income inequality in America. CEO pay will continue to skyrocket unless it becomes a major political issue.

You have been a consistent critic of excessive CEO compensation. We hope you will consider one proposed solution: extending the recently enacted excise tax on CEO compensation above $1 million at non-profit organizations to for-profit companies.

There is no justification for today’s CEO pay levels:

CEOs are not paid for performance. In fact, CEO pay and performance are negatively correlated.
Being industry and company specific, CEO skills are seldom portable. Companies rarely bid for another company’s CEO. Three quarters of Fortune 500 CEOs were internal promotions. Less than two percent of Fortune 500 CEOs were previously CEOs of another public company.
Hundred-million-dollar paydays are not needed to motivate CEOs. The poorly motivated don’t get promoted to CEO.

Excessive executive pay is a small part of the money corporations waste. More costly is the effect on morale. When the CEO makes 300 times what the average employee makes, the sincerity of the boss’s proclamation that “there is no I in team” is problematic.

Worse, the pay system’s short-term focus discourages sound long-term investments. The system induces CEOs to have their company buy back its own stock, hoping to keep the price high, since stock price is often a bonusable metric and CEOs then get to cash in options at a high price.

From 2005 to 2016, stock buybacks by the S&P 500 totaled $5 trillion, equal to half of net income and twice as much as paid to shareholders in dividends. This is $5 trillion that could have been invested in American industry, in R&D, raising worker wages (e.g., Walmart), shoring up pension plans, and lowering prices to consumers (e.g., drug companies). Instead, CEOs cut R&D by 50% and reduced the ratio of capital investment to revenue to a 20-year low. Corporate America is eating the seed corn.

The worst economic consequence is the income inequality created by high CEO pay. From 1980 through 2015, while employee wages were essentially flat, the 0.1% quadrupled their inflation-adjusted income and captured 40% of all economic gains. The 0.1% are not athletes and movie stars. Seventy percent of them are business executives whose incomes are highly influenced by CEO pay.

Despite these costs, it is not in directors’ self-interest to control CEO pay. They will act more responsibly only when confronted with political action. While progressives have introduced a number of bills regarding executive compensation (H.R.138, H.R.2275, H.R.3633, S.1843 and S. 20), corporate boards will not perceive a threat until Democratic leaders agree on a single specific plan.

The recently published book, The CEO Pay Machine by Steven Clifford, advocates an excise tax on CEO compensation. Opening the door, the recent Republican tax bill imposed a 21% excise tax on CEO and other executive pay above $1 million at non-profit organizations. We advocate extending this excise tax to compensation above $1 million for CEOs and other top executives in the for-profit world. Extending this excise tax to the five highest paid company executives would generate about $1 billion in annual tax revenues.

Alone, the prospect of an excise tax on excessive pay could restrain CEO pay escalation. From 1978 to 2016, inflation-adjusted CEO compensation for S&P 500 CEOs rose 937 percent, 70 percent faster than the stock market. Over the same period, the typical worker’s real wages grew only 11 percent.

CEO pay is the low-hanging fruit in the fight for increased income equality and economic opportunity and growth. It is an issue that can unite the progressive and establishment wings of the Democratic Party and needs to be addressed now.

We would enjoy working with you to advance this issue and are willing to talk to you and your staff about this important topic.

Sincerely,

Sarah Anderson, Inequality.org co-editor, Institute for Policy Studies

Steven Clifford, former CEO, director on a dozen private and public corporate boards, and author of The CEO Pay Machine (New York: Blue Rider Press, 2017)

Robert Monks, former CEO, former bank chairman, federal and state executive, director on many private and public boards, cofounder of ISS and Lens Fund, and author of several books on corporate governance

Ralph Nader, consumer advocate and author who has established many citizen groups

Stephen Silberstein, cofounder of Innovative Interfaces Inc. and trustee of the $2.3 billion Marin County (CA) Employees Retirement Association

Robert Weissman, President, Public Citizen

For more information contact:

Ralph Nader

P.O. Box 19312

Washington, DC 20036

202-387-8030

[email protected]

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By Ralph Nader

May 3, 2018

In mid-May, super-war hawks Donald J. Trump (worried about the Mueller investigation), John Bolton, Trump’s new unconfirmed national security advisor, and new Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, are likely to pull out of the Iran nuclear accord. This would open the way for Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his Congressional allies to push for armed conflict with Iran.

“Don’t do it,” declare our allies, Britain, France, and Germany—signatories to the Iran accord along with China and Russia. “Don’t do it,” say former secretaries of state and secretaries of defense from both Republican and Democratic administrations. “Don’t do it,” says Trump’s own Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis, and Trump’s chief of staff, General John Kelly.

“Don’t do it,” say outspoken former top Israeli national security and intelligence officials berating Netanyahu.

All of the above say Iran is in compliance with the accord’s demand to stop its nuclear arms program and allows thorough inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. All parties agree that if Trump disrupts this accord, even more havoc will break loose in that volatile region. This is what both Israel and some Persian Gulf nations may desire, as long as the U.S. bears the burden of this reckless action and plunges into another deep quagmire to add to those in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.

You’d think that the Israeli government couldn’t play Uncle Sam a sucker to fight yet another war—this one against Iran with American soldiers and money. But the three warmongers, named above, are driving U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Unfortunately, Congress regularly disregards its constitutional duties and follows the lead of AIPAC lobbyists.

Both Trump and Netanyahu paint Iran as the most dangerous terrorist state in the world. Really? It wasn’t the Iranian regime that illegally cost over one million Iraqi civilian lives and blew that country apart. It was George W. Bush and Dick Cheney becoming major war criminals whose actions cost the lives of over 5,000 American soldiers, injured or made sick well over 100,000 more, and wasted trillions of dollars continuing to this day.

Iran wants its sphere of influence.  The country has memories. For example, in 1953, the U.S. overthrew Iran’s democratically elected prime minister and reinstalled the dictatorial Shah who ruled despotically for the next 26 years. In 2002, George W. Bush targeted Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, referring to them as the “axis of evil.”  Iran saw what he did to Iraq and didn’t want to take chances by surrendering its security perimeter.

The U.S. has Iran militarily surrounded on its eastern, western, and southern borders.  Israel has working spies in Iran, creating secret sabotage and mayhem.  Israel, which has illegally bombed civil war-wracked Syria (no threat to Israel) dozens of times, has recently hit locations known to have Iranian advisors to Bashar Assad, Syria’s ruler, while fighting ISIS, along with U.S. forces there.  Iranians have been killed in these raids.

So who is the aggressor here?  Unlike Israel’s many invasions and military incursions, Iran, a poor country, has not invaded any country for over 250 years. Iraq’s dictator invaded Iran in 1980, with U.S. backing, costing Iran an estimated 500,000 lives.

No country, save the U.S. Empire, has the chutzpah that Netanyahu possesses because he knows the U.S. government and the mass media will embrace his expanding push for U.S. militarism in the Middle East.

Note the interview by NPR’s Steve Inskeep of Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer, on May 1, 2018.  Inskeep was trying to be firm with Mr. Dermer, who was going beyond any evidence that Iran possesses a nuclear weapons program.

The ambassador was showcasing the theft of old Iranian documents from an Israeli nighttime raid on an Iranian warehouse.  (The New York Times called these documents about a long-suspended program “Mr. Netanyahu’s Flimflam on Iran”).  When that ploy didn’t work, he tried to tell Inskeep that Iran will get to a nuclear bomb by staying with the deal because existing restrictions will be removed someday and the existing inspections are “a joke.”  He also condemned Iran for violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The ambassador’s flailing accusations could have, but did not, set the stage for Inskeep to ask the following obvious question:

“Mr. Ambassador, Israel has long had a nuclear weapons program, with an estimated 150 or more nuclear bombs at the ready.  Also, your country has rejected belonging to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty so you can avoid any international inspectors provided by this global agreement. Your critics would say, ‘Who are you to complain about Iran, which is afraid of not only your bombers made in America, but also your large nuclear bombs and warheads?’”

As in years past, the Israeli government won’t tell the globally recognized truth about having nuclear weapons. Instead, the ambassador would have uttered the boilerplate evasive reply that Israel would not be the first to use nuclear weaponry in the region.

For decades, Israeli leaders and emissaries have come to the U.S. for congressional speeches, for interviews on the Sunday network talk shows and in the print media. Questions about Israel’s nuclear bombs have not been juxtaposed with Israel’s desire for the U.S. to overthrow the Iranian regime or bomb Iranian installations. Trump’s war hawk in the White House, John Bolton, wants to go further. In the past, Bolton has urged Israel to militarily annex the Palestinian West Bank, presumably as a twofer.

Will enough American people, including knowledgeable retired national security and military officials, stand up to stop this slide toward another conflagration that will likely produce blowback in the U.S.?

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May 1, 2018

To: Members of Congress

From: Ralph Nader, Consumer Advocate

Paul Hudson, President, FlyersRights.org

We are writing in reference to the airline industry’s influence on members of Congress and how such influence may be manifested through gifts, discounts, perks, and VIP treatment. Such disclosure is critical because Congress wields major authority over the airlines.

According to the Congressional Research Service, approximately 4% of the Members Representational Allowance—totaling about $20 million—was spent on official travel in FY2016. (fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40962.pdf). Chapter 3 of the House Ethics Manual, published by the House Committee on Ethics, addresses much but not all of Congressional travel policy. This document clearly states that government rates for airlines, hotels, and car rental companies are “available ONLY [emphasis ours] for official travel.” (ethics.house.gov/travel-information/o...)

However, the interpretation of these policies is often left to individual members. For example, the manual further notes: “Free travel, mileage, discounts, upgrades, coupons, etc. awarded at the sole discretion of a company as a promotional award may be used at the discretion of the Member or the Member’s employee.  The Committee [on House Administration] encourages the OFFICIAL [emphasis ours] use of these travel promotional awards wherever practicable.”

Members of Congress are effectively receiving a personal benefit of free air travel of at least 1-2% of the cost of their air travel expense paid for by US taxpayers.  So, for $20 million of government air travel, members receive at least $200,000 worth of tax-free personal air travel. If a government employee were to receive 1% cash for whatever the government paid to a vendor, it would certainly be classified as illegal; but because it’s in-kind, it has escaped ethics and anti-corruption laws.

As most members are weekly flyers, there is a symbiotic relationship they have with airlines that perhaps explains their unwillingness to rein in airline abuses and that gives this particular industry a special relationship with Congress not enjoyed by others.

In 2015, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) introduced H.R. 2210, the Coach-Only Airfare for Capitol Hill Act, which “would prohibit Members of Congress from using official funds from the Member Representational Allowance (MRA) to purchase first-class airline tickets while traveling for official Congressional duties.” (gosar.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=1957) Upon introducing this legislation, Rep. Gosar cited a 2014 Washington Post article titled “First Class Travel for Lawmakers: A Smarmy Tale of Congressional Political Games,” that referenced members of Congress voting in favor of first-class travel at taxpayer expense. (www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2014/05/15/first-class-travel-for-lawmakers-a-smarmy-tale-of-congressional-political-games/)

In recent years, several conflicts have arisen between the airline industry and elected and senior government officials. Please note the following:

OPERATION OF MONEY-LOSING ROUTES:

In 2016, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey reached a non-prosecution agreement with United Airlines in connection with that carrier’s operation of a money-losing flight between Newark, N.J. and Columbia, S.C. (newsroom.united.com/2016-07-14-United-Airlines-Reaches-Non-Prosecution-Agreement-In-Port-Authority-Investigation) The flight was established to facilitate the private travel plans of the former chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees United’s dominant hub at Newark Liberty International Airport. (www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/07/14/united-port-scandal/87094180/)

WAIVER OF FEES:

With few exceptions (e.g., Southwest Airlines), domestic carriers impose hefty fees and/or nonrefundability clauses on nearly all domestic ticket purchases. However, the House Ethics Manual states: “The Committee has also issued a general gift rule waiver permitting Members to make multiple reservations for official travel if offered by an airline.” (ethics.house.gov/travel-information/official-travel-paid-official-funds) While House ethics rules may allow such waivers, it’s unclear if certain airlines offer them to members of Congress while simultaneously not offering such waivers to the general public.

OTHER ISSUES:

Multiple reports from nonprofit organizations and media outlets in recent years have detailed many other VIP perks for members of Congress by the airline industry:

• In 2011, the Center for Public Integrity noted: “Staff schedulers oftentimes make reservations for members of Congress via dedicated phone lines that Delta and other major airlines have reportedly set up for Capitol Hill customers. Airlines also permit members to reserve seats on multiple flights but only pay for the trips they take.” (www.publicintegrity.org/2011/11/23/7495/congressional-perks-lawmakers-most-surprising-benefits)

• In 2011, Roll Call confirmed that double-booking policies were ubiquitous: “‘We get on every single flight,’ one congressional aide familiar with the process told Roll Call last month.” (www.rollcall.com/issues/57_43/Being-in-Congress-Has-Perks-209558-1.html)

• In 2013, The Motley Fool noted: “What’s really unique is that lawmakers are afforded the ability by airlines to book themselves on multiple flights without being charged multiple times because of their very liquid schedules.” (www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/10/20/10-perks-congress-has-that-you-dont.aspx)

• In 2017, ThePointsGuy.com noted: “Given that members’ time is rather valuable, a staffer told me that one senator will tell staffers to book him refundable seats on the 6pm, 7pm, and 8pm flights back to his district each Thursday so he can have a more flexible schedule.” (thepointsguy.com/2017/01/how-government-officials-fly/)

• In 2011, FrequentlyFlying.com cited similar reports: “Delta Air Lines has upgraded several of Georgia’s current and former politicians with Gold, Platinum, and even Diamond Medallion status [in the SkyMiles frequent flyer program].” (frequentlyflying.boardingarea.com/delta-air-lines-granting-elite-status-to-top-georgia-elected-officials/)

In light of these matters, we are writing to request that you share information that should be public on whether airlines, airport authorities, and/or government agencies have provided you or your staff with favors and privileges not provided to the general public, including frequent flyer rewards status and the amount of free personal air travel accumulated or used at government and taxpayer expense. We have detailed such privileges below.  Please share what your office has accepted and declined.

PRIVILEGES GRANTED BY AIRLINES:

• Operating flights specifically for your convenience

• Intentionally delaying or rescheduling flights for your convenience

• Ticket discounts

• Complimentary tickets

• Complimentary upgrades to premium economy, business, or first classes

• Complimentary amenities (meals, drinks, inflight entertainment, etc.)

• Complimentary elite status in frequent flyer programs

• Waivers of ticketing fees for changes, rebooking, refundability, etc.

• Waivers of ancillary fees for checked baggage or other services

• Access to airport lounges

• Priority boarding/disembarking

• VIP escorts

• Other amenities or perks

PRIVILEGES GRANTED BY AIRPORT AUTHORITIES AND/OR GOVERNMENT AGENCIES:

• Complimentary and/or VIP parking at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Washington Dulles International Airport, and/or other facilities

• Expedited clearance through U.S. Transportation Security Administration airport security processing

• Expedited clearance through U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing

• Expedited clearance through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services processing

• Other amenities or perks

Please notify us if you have any questions or additional comments. Thank you for your assistance. May we hear from you by Monday, June 4, 2018 to avoid receiving repeated requests and petitions?

Thank you.

Ralph Nader, Consumer Advocate

Paul Hudson, President, FlyersRights.org

SOURCES:

U.S. Congressional Research Service; “Members’ Representational Allowance: History and Usage;” September 27, 2017; (fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40962.pdf)

U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Ethics; “Official Travel Paid With Official Funds;” (ethics.house.gov/travel-information/official-travel-paid-official-funds)

U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Standards of Official Conduct; “House Ethics Manual;” 2008 Edition; (ethics.house.gov/sites/ethics.house.gov/files/documents/2008_House_Ethics_Manual.pdf)

Rep. Paul Gosar; “Rep. Gosar Introduces Bipartisan Legislation to Prohibit Members of Congress from Flying First Class on the Taxpayer Dime;” May 1, 2015; (gosar.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=1957)

Washington Post; “First Class Travel for Lawmakers: A Smarmy Tale of Congressional Political Games;” May 15, 2014; (www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2014/05/15/first-class-travel-for-lawmakers-a-smarmy-tale-of-congressional-political-games/)

The Center for Public Integrity; “Congressional Perks: Lawmakers; Most Surprising Benefits;” November 23, 2011; (www.publicintegrity.org/2011/11/23/7495/congressional-perks-lawmakers-most-surprising-benefits)

Roll Call; “Being in Congress Has Perks;” October 17, 2011; (www.rollcall.com/issues/57_43/Being-in-Congress-Has-Perks-209558-1.html)

The Hill; “Business Travel Coalition: Lawmakers Advocate ‘Mother of All Subsidies’ for Delta, United, and American Airlines;” May 22, 2015; (thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/242863-lawmakers-advocate-mother-of-all-subsidies-for-delta)

USA Today; “United to Pay $2.25M in Newark Scandal;” July 14, 2016; (www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/07/14/united-port-scandal/87094180/)

United Airlines; “United Airlines Reaches Non-Prosecution Agreement in Port Authority Investigation;” July 14, 2016; (newsroom.united.com/2016-07-14-United-Airlines-Reaches-Non-Prosecution-Agreement-In-Port-Authority-Investigation)

The Motley Fool; “10 Perks Congress Has That You Don’t;” October 20, 2013; (www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/10/20/10-perks-congress-has-that-you-dont.aspx)

The Points Guy.com; “How Government Officials Fly—From the President to Your Local Representative;” January 23, 2017; (thepointsguy.com/2017/01/how-government-officials-fly/)

View from the Wing; “It’s Good to Be the King: The Special Travel Perks Enjoyed by the Political Class;” February 18, 2015; (viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2015/02/18/good-king-special-travel-perks-enjoyed-political-class/)

ViewFromTheWing.com; “Is It Wrong That Members of Congress Get Special Treatment from the Airlines?;” May 29, 2015; (viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2015/05/29/is-it-wrong-that-members-of-congress-get-special-treatment-from-the-airlines/)

Bloomberg Businessweek; “The Pampered World of Congressional Air Travel;” April 30, 2013; (www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-04-30/the-pampered-world-of-congressional-air-travel)

The Hill; “Congress to Lose VIP Parking Spots at National Airport;” April 26, 2017; (thehill.com/policy/transportation/330667-congress-to-lose-vip-parking-spots-at-reagan-airport-this-summer)

FrequentlyFlying.com; “Delta Air Lines Granting Elite Status to Top Georgia Elected Officials;” June 21, 2011; (frequentlyflying.boardingarea.com/delta-air-lines-granting-elite-status-to-top-georgia-elected-officials/)

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May 1, 2018

The Honorable Jeff Sessions

Attorney General

U.S. Department of Justice

Robert F. Kennedy Building

950 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20530

Re: Corporate Crime Database and Annual Report

Dear Attorney General Sessions:

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has been clear about the dangers posed by corporate crime.

In its strategic plan for fiscal years 2014-18, the DOJ states that economic crimes present “very severe threats to the United States’ economy” and that the “explosion of financial fraud over the past few years has threatened the Nation’s financial stability.”

To put the gravity of these threats in context, the DOJ has recognized that “threats to the U.S. economic system must be addressed with the same seriousness and sense of purpose that guide efforts to protect the safety of the Nation.”

In similar terms, the DOJ calls health care fraud “one of the most destructive and widespread national challenges facing our country.”

In April 2017, you told a group of compliance officers meeting in Washington, D.C., “We will enforce the law.  We’re not going to back down to powerful forces, big companies or powerful economic interests.”

To properly face these major threats, it is important that the DOJ have more specific and timely ways to measure the incidence and severity of corporate crime, to determine whether its efforts against them are successful or not, and the many ways they might be improved.

Currently, the DOJ does not compile comprehensive data on corporate crime. This is a notable oversight.

It is as if the Department of Education had no measures for how well our children learn, or if the U.S. Department of Agriculture had no idea of how much wheat or corn our farmers grow.

The failure to measure can lead to sloppy thinking, bad decisions and entrenched neglect.

We urge the DOJ to equip itself with the power afforded by measurement and data analysis.

For street crime, the FBI oversees the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, which tracks data from over 18,000 local and state law enforcement agencies.

The DOJ should launch a parallel program for corporate crime and law-breaking, including but not limited to antitrust and price-fixing, environmental crimes, financial crimes, overseas bribery, health care fraud, trade violations, labor and employment-related violations (discrimination and occupational injuries and deaths), consumer fraud and damage to consumer health and safety, and corporate tax fraud onshore and offshore.

A pittance invested here will go a long way toward promoting more lawful corporate behavior and the critical public support the DOJ needs for adequate enforcement budgets and stronger laws.

The DOJ should produce and maintain a corporate crime database.  This is an elemental form of accountability.  Street criminals have rap sheets — corporate law-breakers ought to have them, too.  This could help to deter and punish such crime in many ways.

For example, prosecutors, regulators and judges could use the database to identify recidivist violators and to assess appropriate sanctions. Procurement officials could use a corporate crime database to identify corporations that fail to meet the “responsible contractor” standard in the Federal Acquisition Regulation.

In addition, by making the database available online to the public for free, it would benefit countless journalists, criminologists and other scholars, investors, and others interested in crime in the suites.

At a minimum, the corporate crime database should:

Be searchable by parent company, major subsidiaries, corporate official name, industry, type of crime, city, state, and date of crime.
Contain individual company data, including the number of civil, administrative and criminal enforcement actions brought against corporate defendants by government agencies involving a felony charge, misdemeanor, or civil charge where potential fines may be $1,000 or more.
Specify the agency bringing each charge, the charge, the name of the company charged (including the ultimate parent company), and the outcome of the action if any, including plea agreements, consent decrees, findings of innocence, convictions, and fines and other penalties.

The “Corporate Crime Database Act” (H.R. 6545 in 111th Congress, H.R. 323 in 112th Congress) was introduced in 2010 to require the DOJ to establish and maintain such a database, and to make it available to the public via the Internet.

Such proposals have been made by advocates for many years.

The DOJ should also issue an annual report on corporate crime.

At a minimum, the report should provide an estimate of the total annual cost of corporate crime in the United States.

It should include not only costs of crimes committed by individuals against businesses and investors (white-collar crime), but also the costs that corporate crime imposes on the rest of society, including the resulting deaths, injuries and property damage. In addition, millions of Americans lost their jobs, due to the financial crisis of 2008-9, which was caused by mortgage fraud and reckless speculative Wall Street gambling. Imagine Americans lost trillions of dollars because of financial sector greed and lawlessness.

The report should present an analysis of trends in corporate crime and an explanation of the relative effectiveness of various conventional sanctions, and the potential of new sanctions.

While the UCR Program does measure certain forms of white-collar crime, it is far from a thorough treatment of corporate crime.

The DOJ’s annual corporate crime report should also tally data about prosecutions and compile agency enforcement data, including budgets, descriptions, staff, and status of investigations. The report should also address the issue of unenforced noncompliance.

The report should include the number of cases referred to U.S. attorneys for prosecution each year by the FBI or other federal and state agencies, as well as the status and ultimate disposition (i.e., how many referrals were prosecuted; how many prosecuted were found guilty; how many settled with deferred and non-prosecution agreements; the magnitude and kind of penalties involved; how many cases settled).

It should also compile agency enforcement data, including the number, description, and status of investigations initiated by federal agencies (including the DOJ and Department of Labor as well as the EPA, SEC, IRS, OSHA, CPSC, FDA, FRA, FAA, NHTSA and FTC).

More than one-third of a century has elapsed since the DOJ issued a thorough analysis of corporate crime in America (“Illegal Corporate Behavior”, October 1979).

We are well into the 21st century, and non-governmental unofficial databases on corporate crime have been created to partially fill the void.

The University of Virginia Law School has pulled together its Corporate Prosecution Registry. The Corporate Research Project has its Violation Tracker. But there is still no comprehensive official federal database of corporate crime in America.

Given your recognition of the tremendous costs of corporate crime to Americans, their household wealth and our economy, the DOJ must resolutely employ these most elementary tools of analysis and accountability without further delay.

We would like to meet with you to discuss these matters as well as broader consensus subjects relating to corporate crime, fraud and abuse that annually are costing many human casualties and hundreds of billions of dollars to taxpayers and to private-sector consumers, workers, and small businesses. According to a 2015 report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, there had been an estimated $60 billion in annual fraud and abuse just on Medicare the year before.

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader

Consumer Advocate

Rena Steinzor

Edward M. Robertson Professor of Law

University of Maryland Carey Law School

Robert Weissman

President

Public Citizen

Greg LeRoy

Executive Director

Good Jobs First

Philip Mattera

Director

Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First

Robert Fellmeth

Price Professor of Public Interest Law

University of San Diego School of Law.

Charlie Cray

Interim Director of Political and Business Policy

Greenpeace USA

John Richard

Director

Essential Information

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Mark E. Ojakian, President

Connecticut State Colleges and Universities

61 Woodland Street

Hartford, CT 06105

April 11, 2017

Dear President Ojakian,

News reports regarding the Board’s plan to centrally consolidate the administrative and operational structures of the system’s state colleges, including the community colleges, raise troublesome questions:

Those persons who spoke or wanted to speak had less than two days to study and prepare from the plans release. Why so short a time?
Centralizing and consolidating moves very often project savings more optimistic than the ensuing reality that flows form expanding an existing bureaucracy from the top and ignoring the costs – both tangible and intangible that flow from local control, accessibility, greater personal feedback and accountability. Why did you just put forth the alleged savings and not the costs?
Consolidation is another word for concentrated power and further delays in decisions over local people and their local institutions. Concentrated power invites abuse of power and shreds local innovations and morale. What make you think that taking power away from communities, especially those with traditions of town meetings and referenda will bring the best out of people who learn in and run these community colleges?

F. Philip Prelli, a former state agricultural commissioner and board member at the Northwestern Connecticut Community College Foundation, opposed this consolidation, noting the benefits lost from consolidating power far removed if not absentee from local conditions. He said, “Let us not take the ‘community’ out of community college.”

On that last observation, you may wish to read the just published Democratizing America: Shaf Nader and the Founding of an Impossible College, recounting my brother’s lead role in founding the Northwestern Connecticut Community College in Winsted (recently rated first among such colleges in Connecticut and 86th in the nation of over 1200 community colleges). Pertinent in the book is his thoughts on the community nature of community colleges. Had there been consolidation then, he could not have been successful, for Winsted would have been considered too small a town for such an institution which now sports several new and renovated buildings in addition to Founders’ Hall.

I look forward to your response and hope it pays attention to fairer procedures, openness and affirmative efforts to invite commentary from all constituencies, including students and faculty affording them full disclosure of your work product for education.

Top down conclusions leading to top down dictates are not conductive to the purposes of any educational body in a purported democratic society.

Thank you.

Sincerely yours,

Ralph Nader

PO Box 19367

Washington, DC 20036

[email protected]

202-387-8030

Now that you have done the deal to ‘strip mine’ the Connecticut community colleges, will you respond to my April 11, 2017 letter seeking information about the asserted savings and the real costs of this scheme?

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By Ralph Nader

April 25, 2018

Richmond, California—a city of 110,000 people, most of whom are minorities— is located on beautiful bays and coves next to San Francisco. Hovering over Richmond is the giant Chevron oil refinery. For decades, the city’s residents had to breathe air polluted by Chevron, endure the costs of Chevron’s careless spills, and surrender to Chevron’s gross underpayment of local taxes.

Chevron’s political muscle—even though few of its employees lived in Richmond—made Richmond into an oppressive company town.

Until, that is, Chicago-born Gayle McLaughlin decided, after years of Midwestern activism, to set down roots in Richmond. There, McLaughlin found a few like-minded progressives and started the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA). (Gayle had volunteered in the Green Party’s 2000 Presidential Campaign)

With very little money, but many long overdue proposals for the betterment of the city, the RPA went to work. They had three public assets—a set of progressive policy changes, support of a large silent majority of residents, and a dedicated core of thirty no-nonsense local champions for a just community.

RPA ran a slate of candidates for City Council in 2004, with some success. This was followed by a victory in 2006 that made McLaughlin mayor—a post she held until 2014 when she was termed out and then successfully ran for city council. RPA now controls five of the seven seats—overcoming the Chevron Company’s longtime political boosters.

The majority population knew which side the RPA was on and many would regularly join marches, demonstrations, and pickets to bolster their city council champions.

Gayle McLaughlin recently published her new, compelling book on Richmond, Winning Richmond: How a Progressive Alliance Won City Hall. Union organizer and activist, Steve Early, said,

Blue-collar Richmond was once notorious for its street crime, gun violence, poverty, and pollution. During McLaughlin’s two terms as mayor, that city acquired a far different reputation—for battling Big Oil, Big Soda, Big Banks, and the landlord lobby…

Because of McLaughlin and the RPA, Richmond has a higher minimum wage of $15 an hour, a police department that has curbed police misconduct, a major drop in serious street crime, an increase in Chevron’s tax payments, a decrease in toxic pollution by Chevron, and Solar Richmond, a program demonstrating a greener local economy, more energy self-reliance and jobs.

Chevron and their indentured political allies fought the RPA all the way. But when you run a door-to door, campaign for the city government—linked to protests demanding change from the outside— people can win.

RPA also moderated some of the horrible foreclosure actions by the banks after the 2008 Wall Street financial collapse of the economy on the backs of workers and taxpayers. The Alliance did lose the struggle to implement a small tax on obesity-generating sugary soda pop to a multi-million dollar campaign by that industry. In her new book—a must, must victory read for community activists who may be puffing on treadmills of continual defeat— Ms. McLaughlin declares: “If we could win a progressive agenda in Richmond under the money might of Chevron’s major oil refinery, it can be done anywhere!”

Gayle is now running for Lt. Governor of California as an independent to spread the RPA model of strategy and energy throughout the Golden State. Her agenda is similar to the Bernie Sanders agenda: full Medicare for all with free choice of doctor and hospital (much more efficient with better health outcomes); tuition free public colleges and universities; more progressive taxes on the pampered, coddled super-rich; a ban on corporations bankrolling their candidates; an oil severance tax; a major drive to solarize California and ban fracking; more affordable housing and many ways to give voice and power to the people to redress the power imbalance of the few deciding for the many.

She is standing up to a harshly rigged electoral barrier that prevents the chance for success of independent and third party candidates in California. But if she can get in the debates (as Green Party candidate Peter Camejo running for governor did in 2003), she can, at the least, get the peoples’ message across as a step toward future elections being less “selections” by the political oligarchy/plutocracy.

Gayle is not hesitant to take positions on foreign and military practices that form the American Empire and its boomerang on our political economy and public necessities.

The takeaway is it took only 30 committed members of the RPA to rouse the people into action and take over the City Council. This makes my point that less than one percent of committed citizens with majority public opinion support for their agenda can overcome the vested interests of the ruling classes (See my Breaking Through Power: It’s Easier Than We Think).

If you’re still doubtful, convince yourself by obtaining Gayle McLaughlin’s Winning Richmond (Hardball Press) for your neighborhood library and book circle.

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By Ralph Nader

April 18, 2018

Bill Curry is wondering why corruption is the center of debate or upheaval in every country but ours. He writes that, “Hardly a week goes by without a front-page report of a government toppled or convulsed by corruption scandals.”

Why not our country? Reasons abound. One is that corruption has been institutionalized. It is much more systematic than merely putting cash in an envelope to get a procurement contract from public officials.

Curry, a former Connecticut state Senator, elected state Comptroller, and counsellor to President Bill Clinton, argues that the people hate corruption but are not given its true costs.  Curry says, “As Connecticut Comptroller I learned how to count it. An example: a single corrupt bargain struck with health insurers cost the state $1.5 billion, an amount equal to the record deficit our current governor faced on taking office in 2011. There was never a prosecution.”

The ways private commercial interests corrupt public officials are well known. They come by way of exploding campaign funding, lobbyists with gifts swarming over legislatures, speaking fees, revolving doors for corporatists taking key government positions to thwart law enforcement, and lucrative offers to lawmakers in anticipation of their retirement. All these lures are much more persuasive when the general public is quiet and unorganized.

Legalized corruption is all over Washington, D.C. as trillions of dollars of giveaways, subsidies, bailouts, and no-bid contracts proliferate. Did you know that both domestic and foreign mining companies are allowed to explore your federal public lands for minerals? Under an obsolete 1872 mining law, defended by the American Mining Congress, companies have discovered gold, silver, molybdenum, and other ”hard-rock minerals” on our public lands and pay no more than $5 an acre to mine and sell these valuable minerals, without paying any royalties back to the U.S. Treasury.

For example, according to a 1994 report by the Mineral Policy Institute, American Barrick Resources Corporation of Canada – a Canadian gold company—received “patents” on 1,038 acres. The Mineral Policy Center explains that a “patent” as follows: “A company that discovers a valuable mineral deposit on its claim can “patent,” or gain fee title to, the land for a price not to exceed $5.00 per acre. Upon patent issuance, title to public lands is transferred to private ownership.” Barrick “purchased” the 1,038 acres for $5,190 or $5 per acre. Those acres held mineral reserves valued at more than $10 billion. Quite a return on investment for long-standing institutionalized corruption made possible by campaign cash, wining and dining, and other goodies.  Where is the organized opposition to this robbing of our country’s commonwealth? No other country in the world gives away its hard-rock minerals for free.

Curry maintains that the two major parties are on the same page with corruption. Their political consultants like corporate giveaways because they make most of their money consulting for corporations. The media, he says “is so unattuned to the issue it doesn’t even include it in Election Day exit polls that ask voters to pick their top concerns from a list of 17 issues.” When one pollster put “corruption” on the list in 2009 and 2010, guess what, “it finished first both times, beating out ‘jobs and the economy’ in the teeth of the recession.”

Why is corruption at the top? Because most people know that corruption is the problem that turns government against the people. Corruption affects taxes, waste, health care, drug prices, credit gouging, energy conversion, upgrading public facilities, living wages and cracking down on corporate crime, fraud, and obscene corporate welfare (crony capitalism.) It is behind luscious contracts to the military hardware services industry that President Eisenhower warned about in his 1961 farewell address. Corruption also primes the pump for criminal wars of aggression such as the war in Iraq—by unaccountable politicians like war criminals Bush and Cheney.

It is not a coincidence, Curry relates, that countries like those in western Europe which have less public corruption and more honest procurement contracting practices also have higher standards of living and health than we do.

Curry is fed up, has fire in his belly, and wants action.

Taking off from his past writings and experience over the years and a recent roundtable discussion we had in Washington on massive public and private billing fraud, he has drafted a “call to action” seeking a quantification and analysis of the corruption epidemic, “followed by a strategy for building a movement and influencing media and political elites.”

The next step in mobilizing, he urges, would be “a national conference in Washington this fall to which every institution active in this issue is invited and asked to adopt a declaration to commit to a fight.”

Are any foundations or enlightened people of means committed to this fundamental turnaround in our political economy and its immense, prompt benefits? After all, when so much that is wrong is made “legal” or “plausible” by corrupt lawmakers, the peoples’ focus can be quite efficient—535 members of Congress and 7,383 state lawmakers for one gigantic jumpstart in a key election year!

If you want more information from Bill Curry, please contact him at [email protected].

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By Ralph Nader

April 11, 2018

As a failed businessman, saved by business bankruptcies which he called a “competitive advantage,” Donald Trump believed in chaos as a strategy.   Unfortunately, chaos and foreign policy don’t mix.  Chaos may bring war. And tragically, military aggression can explosively boomerang back to the U.S. mainland.

On April 3rd, Trump declared he was going to pull soldiers out of Syria. After the recent alleged chemical attack on Syrian civilians outside of Damascus, Trump threatened his friend, Vladimir Putin, saying he will pay a price, and that the military response will “be very, very tough.”

Being deliberately unpredictable and keeping your adversary off balance may work for real estate deals in New York, but for potentates and armed groups it is a formula for fast accelerating uncontrollable disasters.

This flailing approach—implying the use of military violence—may please super war-hawk, madman John Bolton—Trump’s unconfirmed National Security Advisor yet to receive a top secret security clearance  from the FBI—but it appalls many  retired military, national security, and diplomatic officials who served  in high positions under both Republican and Democratic presidents.

Why don’t more ex-officials speak up? It is simple patriotism to forewarn the American people about the gathering storms of military interventions. We are fortunate that a few patriots — such as retired colonels Larry Wilkerson and Andrew Bacevich— stand tall and speak out about the unwarranted or unwise use of military force. But where are James Baker, Brent Scowcroft, Colin Powell, and a slew of former Obama administration officials who are silently tearing their hair out over the daily news reports?

There is a strange tradition in our country of former public officials shutting up when they shouldn’t.

I call this tradition an indulgence America cannot afford. Our country needs former public officials to stand up and speak out. Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and the dozens of former cabinet and sub-cabinet Senate confirmed government officials need to publicly challenge Trump’s autocratic attacks on proven practices benefiting people under the rule of law. Our country is seeing rollbacks of rights and protections while the rich and powerful play with its seized riches and misappropriated delegated powers, which belong to the sovereign people.

Recently, several former EPA heads from previous Republican and Democratic Administrations have protested against EPA marauder Scott Pruitt’s unleashing toxic pollutants into the bodies of America’s children, women, and men.

Recently David Shulkin, the fired head of the Veterans Administration, took Trump to task on TV and in an op-ed in the New York Times. There have been other modest displays of resistance to some of Trump’s depredations by some ex-officials. By and large, however, the widespread silence among them is shameful. Former leaders should know better. Whether they retire, resign, or are fired from their positions, these experienced and aghast Americans dwell in a self-imposed state of vanguishment.

I call on them—mostly well-off with available time—to return to the fray and band together on the matters related to their knowhow and knowwho. Taxpayers have invested much in their shelved expertise and judgment.

Call them ex-Obamaites and reformed ex-Trumpsters. They can raise funds to open full-time advocacy offices in Washington that reach out to the country.  Trump is wreaking havoc on the American people as workers, consumers, buyers of medicine, breathers of air and drinkers of water, as taxpayers against waste and spreading corruption, and as children in serious need. These outrages must be counteracted by people who can get their calls returned, get on the mass media, and mobilize the caring public into sturdy citizen challengers of our hijacked federal government before the November elections.

This entreaty is to people who need no mind-changing about the Trump regime. They know what is happening, where the destructive trajectories are heading, and dislike it intensely. I’ve heard enough about their expressions of private dread to urge former public servants to stand up for their country’s well-being—nothing less is at stake!

Democracies die in many ways. But in the 19th century, political philosopher John Stuart Mill delivered a warning for the ages, “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”

If any retired high officials wish to discuss the above plea on my weekly radio show, please use the contact sheet provided on the website.

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By Ralph Nader

April 5, 2018

It’s alarming that there are far fewer media outlets for consumer protection news and features than there were thirty years ago. Recall the huge Phil Donahue Show, the regional radio show and TV news shows, the television networks and syndicated radio shows that would report and interview consumer advocates about the injustice, rip-offs, and harms done to the consumer by unscrupulous corporations.  These shows are largely gone now. Shows marked by fluff, narcissism, trivia, and sensationalist, frenetic news bits are their replacements.

What is disturbing is that the major newspapers – the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal—are cutting back reporting on the revelations and doings of active consumers, and consumer organizations. Sure, they do occasional features that may gain them big journalism prizes. But the regular coverage of very important consumer struggles with Congress, the White House, the courts, and the state legislatures has vastly shrunken. Moreover, the media, especially TV, is dittoheading itself with the daily “big story”, as with the Trumpian escapades.

Serious readers are left with the New York Times daily Business pages (the Washington Post dropped its separate, daily business section a few years ago). Of late, the editors of the Times business section have been diluting its contents with what two former reporters called a more “business friendly” priority. My attempts to discuss this problem with their news editors have not been answered.

Last Sunday I picked up the weighty Sunday New York Times and went to the business page (business is often defined as stories about sellers, when it should include buyers and consumers).  The cover page featured a huge photograph and article titled: “Tiger Is Back, Will Sponsors Follow?”

This article—straining for justification—proceeded to sprawl over another half page or more inside. Meanwhile, Tiger Woods hasn’t even won a single championship on his asserted comeback. This is not the first time that the business page has attempted to entertain readers with inflated articles that evoke the reader’s quizzical response—“what’s this all about?”

Our country is in a midst of a corporate crime wave against consumers, workers, investors, and small taxpayers. Fraudsters are also annually stealing tens of billions of dollars from Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs. Massive billing fraud and abuse is rampant in the private marketplace as well.

The Pentagon’s gigantic annual budget (currently at more than $700 billion) has been unauditable for decades and, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) of Congress, is in regular violation of a 1992 law requiring all government departments to provide audits to the GAO.

The ongoing destruction of the freedom of contract, through fine print stripping of consumer rights and remedies to use the courts keeps eroding the value of consumer dollars. Consumers don’t deserve this costly irritation.

Courts are restricting consumer access by legislative reductions of court budgets and obstacles presented by what is euphemistically called “tort reform” by the insurance and tort-feasors lobbies.

A trillion dollars of unproductive stock buybacks is coming in the next 18 months so as to increase the stock option value of the corporate bosses’ compensation packages. A trillion dollars that can be used for raising low-pay of workers, such as at Walmart, or shoring up company pension fund reserves or investing in R&D or productive enterprise, not to mention dividends to shareholders (individual, pension and mutual funds).

It is not as if the business pages are lacking top level urgent conditions to report as news and features which can also provide topics for their editorial pages.

Instead, the business pages are filled with constant technology hype, as with the inflated promotions and data-starved claims by the companies working on the eminently hackable self-driving cars.

There is plenty of personal advice to taxpayers, but very little on the crisis brought about by the Republican Congress starving the IRS’s budget where staff is trying to collect a part of the $400 billion in uncollected yearly taxes.

Other trends are disturbing. Their first-class weekly aviation columnist, Joe Sharkey, was dismissed three years ago. Times readers fly a lot and have bushels of complaints about an increasingly tone deaf airline industry— the sensible Southwest Airlines is a luminous exception. Yet the Times editors felt they could not justify Sharkey’s $1000 weekly remuneration for doing a sterling job.

Gone also is The Haggler who dissected real consumer grievances in a most engrossing manner. He has not been replaced. Reader voices do not even have a letter to the editor space in the Times business section in which to react or vent.

It has been several years since the Times stopped using print pages for the stock market tables. This should have opened up space for more serious and compelling articles by the paper’s talented staff and contributors. Instead, they no longer have a place for their former star investigative reporter, Gretchen Morgenson, whose searing, well documented Sunday column sent deterrent shivers through culpable corporatist wheeler-dealers.

If anyone is listening to those readers who know what a “business friendly” atmosphere means for the public’s right to know more, please let us know. Two-way conversations on the telephone between editors/reporters and readers are almost extinct.

I, for one, wanted to tell the New York Times business editors that there is only one New York Times and that stupefying standards by this flagship newspaper is seriously consequential for the country.

 

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By Ralph Nader

March 29, 2018

John Bolton’s career of pushing for bombing countries like Iran and North Korea, and his having played an active role in the Bush/Cheney regime’s criminal war of aggression that destroyed Iraq, makes him a clear and present danger to our country and world peace. He is about to become Donald Trump’s personal national security advisor with a staff of 400 right next to the White House. He must be stopped!

For Bolton, the Constitution, federal law, the Geneva Conventions, and other international laws are pieces of paper to be thrown away with unctuous contempt.  This outlaw – the shame of Yale Law School—should have been cast away as a pariah if not prosecuted and imprisoned. A bully to his subordinates in the government and known as “kiss-ass” to his superiors, Bolton is aggressive, relentless, and consistently wrong, when not prevaricatory.

Under Secretary of State Colin Powell, during the imperial Bush/Cheney presidency, Bolton told the media that Fidel Castro was developing chemical and biological weapons. False. Secretary Powell, who believes Bolton is impetuous and dangerous, overrode his in-house liar and corrected the record. While in Cuba with a group, I heard Fidel Castro say he feared Bolton’s words were a precursor to a U.S. attack until Bolton’s remarks were dismissed by his superiors.

There is a remarkable liberal/conservative dislike and fright about Bolton having Trump’s ear daily. Especially since Trump is susceptible to adopting the positions of the last person who reaches him. The added danger is that Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has privately told people that he, like many who have experienced Bolton in government, cannot work with him. So does that mean that Trump will have to choose between the restraining hand of General Mattis and the recklessness of the draft-avoiding torture advocate John Bolton?

Will Republicans, who refused to confirm Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 2005, assume some responsibility for opposing this sociopath? They could easily pass a joint resolution of Congress demanding withdrawal of the appointment by Trump.

There are many vigorous critics of Bolton’s career and subsequent belligerent stances ; Just last month Bolton wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal demanding the bombing of North Korea. His juvenile, lethal positions avoid considering the consequences, responses, backlash and danger to our country’s own safety. He likes to bet on the world—a Dr. Strangelove on steroids.

A lengthy New York Times editorial (March 23, 2018) declares, “Yes, John Bolton Really is that Dangerous.”  It begins: “there are few people more likely than Mr. Bolton to lead the country into war.” Especially since Trump – mired in domestic scandals, investigations, and personal lawsuits—may wish to wag the dog and start wider, distracting, armed hostilities abroad.

The American Conservative magazine is stirring that segment of the political spectrum with Gareth Porter’s article, “The Untold Story of John Bolton’s Campaign for War with Iran.”  Trump didn’t like General McMaster’s (Trump’s outgoing National Security Advisor) counsel that the U.S. remain in the Iran nuclear accord and not isolate itself from other major country signatories who say Iran is complying with its terms.

Then there is Bolton’s bigotry against Arabs and Muslims and his alliance with Pamela Geller—the notorious Islamophobe. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) has elaborated on Bolton’s outrageous falsehoods against Arabs and Muslims (the “other anti-semitism” in the words of James Zogby in 1994 at a conference in Israel).

How does such a deep hatred in the White House connect to Trump’s repeated declaration that he allegedly seeks a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians?

Republican constitutional law analyst, Bruce Fein, presents a strong case that the powerful position of national security advisor to the President must be confirmed by the Senate. In which case, Bolton would be gone.

Fein argues:

The Appointments Clause of the Constitution militates against the National Security Advisor aberration.  It makes Senate confirmation of “officers of the United States” the rule.  But Congress may by statute create exceptions for “inferior officers.”  But it has not done so for the Advisor—even assuming the office qualifies as “inferior.”

The other obstacles to Bolton’s assuming his position is that it will take the FBI many weeks to decide whether he can receive a top security clearance. At age 69, Bolton has a long trail of entanglements and intrigues in and out of government, not to mention his tantrums—some involving female public servants.

Fein recounts Bolton’s “unmasking the names of Americans whose conversation has been intercepted by the National Security Agency under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).” He still defends the catastrophic invasion and occupation of Iraq (for more information see Madea Benjamin’s “10 Reasons to Fear John Bolton“).

How does such a madman like Bolton keep coming back? Two reasons stand out. First, the more aggressive parts of the military-industrial complex, bolstered by the neocons, see him as a useful tool—for bigger military budgets and empire. Second, he is a staunch collaborator with the Israel lobby’s support of Israel’s militaristic, increasingly autocratic regime that regularly works against a two-state solution (The majority of American Jews support a two-state solution).

If President Trump gives Bolton a waiver while he works without a security clearance, as he has done, under wide condemnation, for his family and a few others already, the political firestorm may be enough, with other factors, to cause Trump to have Bolton bolt the White House with only his Trump-irritating walrus mustache intact.

In the immediate meantime, members of congress and aroused citizens must use their influence to block or evict John Bolton from our White House.

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