Ralph Nader's Blog, page 43

Highly Recommended Books for 2019 Summer Reading

By Ralph Nader

July 1, 2019

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff (PublicAffairs, 2019): You’re already experiencing the early stages of Big Corporations becoming Big Brother while Big Government becomes the Big Pussycat. Unfortunately, indentured Members of Congress drink the milk of campaign contributions and dream of industry job offers. This constructive book is chilling and will curb your digital enthusiasm.
Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom by Katherine Eban (Ecco, 2019): This book exposes the price gouging U.S. Drug Companies that are outsourcing production of medicines (and their active ingredients) to China and India with disastrous results. We are at the mercy of these largely uninspected, often contaminated, foreign labs and are not given labeling information regarding the country of origin of vital medicines. Did you know that the U.S. no longer produces antibiotics? Once you read Eban’s work, you won’t look at prescription medications the same way.
Strength Through Peace: How Demilitarization Led to Peace and Happiness in Costa Rica, and What the Rest of the World can Learn From a Tiny, Tropical Nation by Judith Lipton and David Barash (Oxford University Press, 2018): Lipton and Barash expertly tell the story of how Costa Rica outperforms the U.S. in meeting basic human needs. The book humbles our native ethnocentricity and our culturally accepted, elementary school-taught myth that the U.S. has little to learn from other countries.
Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age by Ellen Brown (Democracy Collaborative, 2019): Brown offers an in-depth exploration of the problems with big banks and the “shadow banking” industry. The book explains how reckless bankers affect your livelihood, waste your tax dollars, and unduly influence an increasingly corporate-owned government. Nestle with this book until you see the wonderful future that could be ours, by recovering control of OUR OWN MONEY.
The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption by Dahr Jamail (The New Press, 2019): The intrepid Jamail went to the shaken places where global warming is fracturing our planet in very plain sight. His book serves as a tour of climate disasters for the climate disruption deniers who ignore what is clearly happening before their very eyes.
Ethics, Politics, and Whistleblowing in Engineering by Nicholas Sakellariou and Rania Milleron (CRC Press, 2018): It is not only Boeing engineers whose better judgments about aircraft safety were overridden by profit-obsessed management (Axe the Boeing 737 Max!). Engineers in many industries provide expert judgments on the health, safety, and durability of products and processes. These experts are routinely ignored by avaricious corporate bosses looking to maximize profits at the public’s expense. A recent high profile example of this was the disastrous Boeing 737 Max crashes, which might have been prevented if Boeing management had heeded the advice of their more conscientious engineers. At last, there is a book with case studies, professional vision, and a cast of heroes for engineering students, practicing engineers, and all the rest of us that will raise our expectations for the engineering profession (Proud to say that Rania is my niece).
Conflicts of Interest In Science: How Corporate-Funded Academic Research Can Threaten Public Health by Sheldon Krimsky (Skyhorse Publishing, 2019): In this collection of articles, Krimsky delves into the devolution of scientific research from the integrity of academic science to the secret, profit-driven domination of corporate science. This book brings together many examples of the impact of corporate funded research on health and safety.  Taxpayer dollars and public trust are at risk in the current scientific climate. Krimsky compellingly advocates for full disclosure and the need to shield university scientists from the pressure or temptation to sell out consumers, workers, and the environment.
Viking Economics: How the Scandinavians Got It Right-and How We Can, Too by George Lakey (Melville House Books, 2016): Given the upcoming presidential primaries and elections, this book is a contemporary necessity. Lakey illustrates how Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland have used social democratic policies to make their citizens the world’s healthiest and happiest people. Relatively, the Nordic countries are a model for good governance, equitable prosperity, and responsible environmental leadership. This is the “most fun economics book” you’ve never read. Voters and candidates alike should read it before the November 2020 election.
Whistleblower at the CIA: An Insider’s Account of the Politics of Intelligence by Melvin A. Goodman (City Lights Books, 2017): As a career CIA intelligence analyst and truth-teller Goodman shows how the secretive CIA has been anything but “intelligent.” The modern CIA blunders through the world with major, inaccurate forecasts, violent covert action, general lawlessness, and cover-ups that ignore President Harry Truman’s original intention for the organization. This book explains why CIA actions have contributed to our country’s disastrous foreign policy. A personal, readable, and authentically patriotic story.
Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbotham (Simon and Schuster, 2019): Adam Higginbotham’s recent book prompted one reviewer to say that the author “gives us a glimpse of Armageddon.” The atomic power meltdown in Ukraine 33 years ago has produced a large uninhabitable region and driven deadly radiation effects, short and long term, into humans, their genes, and the flora and fauna. Together with the widely viewed HBO series on Chernobyl, this book explains why people should reject any notion that nuclear energy is a solution to global warming. Far, far better is to invest in energy conservation, solar energy, and wind energy – energy options that are cheaper, quicker, safer, and more community based. The catastrophic consequences and security threats posed by using nuclear power (the purpose of which is to boil water) are unacceptable. Remember Fukushima—nuclear disasters can happen anywhere.

Letter to Chairman Clayton

June 27, 2019

Chairman Jay Clayton

Securities and Exchange Commission

100 F Street, NE

Washington, DC 20549

Dear Chairman Clayton,

Given the prominent media coverage and the class actions filed by shareholders of the Boeing Corporation regarding the effect of the 737 Max crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia on the company’s share price, the SEC has directed increased attention to that company’s governance. On May 24, 2019 Bloomberg News reported:

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether Boeing Co. properly disclosed issues tied to the grounded 737 Max jetliner, according to people familiar with the matter, as regulators intensify their scrutiny of the company following two deadly crashes.

Officials in the SEC’s enforcement division are examining whether Boeing was adequately forthcoming to shareholders about material problems with the plane, said the people who asked not to be named because the probe isn’t public. The agency is also reviewing the aircraft manufacturer’s accounting to make sure its financial statements have appropriately reflected potential impacts from the problems, the people said.

An issue is deemed “material” if “there is a substantial likelihood that a reasonable investor would attach importance in determining whether to buy or sell securities.” The actions of Boeing’s management have clearly had a material impact on Boeing shareholders.

Since the Ethiopia Airlines crash, class action lawsuits have been filed against Boeing on behalf of investors. The first of these suits was filed in Chicago by Richard Seeks, a Boeing investor. The Washington Post reports Mr. Seeks claims that Boeing “‘effectively put profitability and growth ahead of airplane safety and honesty.’ The suit said investors suffered economic losses because of Boeing’s omissions and is seeking damages for alleged securities fraud violations.”  The suit also alleges that Boeing “hid from investors and passengers that it prepared its own reports and statements to the FAA certifying its planes as safe to fly and that these statements and reports were undermined by Boeing’s conflicts of interest in having been delegated authority by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to examine, test, and help certify its own planes and to provide the safety analysis for the 737 MAX.”

Additional lawsuits have been filed that “accuse Boeing of concealing the full extent of safety problems caused by the placement of larger engines on the 737 MAX that changed the handling characteristics from previous models. These handling characteristics included the danger of the increased pitch-up tendency of the aircraft, which required special safety features, some of which Boeing installed only as ‘extras.’”

Plaintiffs also claim that material omissions and false and misleading statements inflated the price of Boeing stock, so when the recent plane crashes brought the truth to light, Boeing’s investors suffered damages.

At the April 29, 2019 shareholders meeting, a resolution to separate the roles of CEO from Chairman of the Board received 34 percent of the vote. (Institutional Shareholder Services, a major shareholder advisor on corporate governance and responsible investment, urged Boeing to split the role of chairman and chief executive officer).

Presently, Dennis Muilenburg holds both positions – a dual role many corporate governance scholars and other experts view as seriously compromising the independence of the Board of Directors.

Indeed, Boeing’s governance is so compromised that the present Board could be described as a collection of highly paid rubberstamping puppets with each director receiving over $300,000 a year. Most of the members of the Board have no experience in commercial aviation. Many board members are chosen for their celebrity status and their malleability (See attached names of Boeing’s Board of Directors). As reported in the Washington Post, the proxy advisor Glass Lewis recommended, after the Ethiopia crash, replacing Audit Committee Chair Lawrence Kellner because he “should have taken a more proactive role in identifying the risks associated with the 737 Max 8 aircraft.” 

Boeing’s Board also approved a handsome bonus for the company’s CEO and approved an additional $20 billion of stock buybacks in December 2018, after the Lion Air crash. This decision was suspended after the Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max crash in March 2019.

Many questions about Boeing’s management are emerging in the press, and from Members of Congress, Congressional Committee staff, and investigators with the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General’s office. The Justice Department is conducting a criminal probe and has issued grand jury subpoenas. According to The Seattle Times, “after two fatal crashes of Boeing’s 737 MAX, a federal agent served a grand jury subpoena … seeking information from an aviation flight-controls expert and consultant as part of a sweeping and aggressive criminal investigation into the jet’s certification.”

If the members of Boeing’s Board were essentially kept in the dark by management — as were the pilots, airlines, FAA, and SEC, then the very well paid executive “hired hands” committed serious violations of the most basic principles of corporate governance.

If the members of Boeing’s Board were more fully informed than the above mentioned stakeholders in Boeing’s commercial and “regulatory” circles, and failed to act, the Board is complicit in acts that may give rise to charges of criminal negligence. Many indicators of negligence have been convincingly documented since the March 10, 2019 crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302.

Amy C. Edmondson wrote in the Harvard Business Review:

In the aftermath of the two fatal accidents of Boeing 737 Max jets, tentatively blamed on the over-automation of Boeing’s flight systems, renewed attention to Boeing production facilities was perhaps inevitable. Evidence is now trickling out that workers in the troubled Boeing 787 Dreamliner plant in South Carolina were pushed to maintain an overly ambitious production schedule and fearful of losing their jobs if they raised concerns. This is a textbook case of how the absence of psychological safety – the assurance that one can speak up, offer ideas, point out problems, or deliver bad news without fear of retribution – can lead to disastrous results.

The accidents and the resulting media attention together create a real wake-up call for Boeing, which I expect will now embark on an examination of every aspect of its operations. What’s required, however, is more than operational fixes. It is nothing less than a full organizational culture change. But how telling it is that it takes a cataclysmic event (two, actually) for executives to take culture seriously? And yet, sadly, this is the way a thoroughgoing change in the culture of an organization happens most often: AFTER a big, visible failure or tragic event.

With the information already submitted by Boeing to the SEC, more than enough is publicly known to warrant additional steps be taken by the SEC. The following initiatives are merited given the importance of safety in the aviation industry and the significant role this industry plays in the U.S. economy. According to the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), aerospace and defense “accounted for nine percent of all U.S. exports in domestic goods and is the nation’s third largest exporting industry.” And Boeing alone accounts for approximately 43 percent of global commercial airline industry revenues.

The SEC should:

Hold a public forum to solicit comments from various stakeholders on the impact of stock buybacks on safety and the ultimate impact on investors;
Solicit comments from airline safety organizations, pilot, flight attendant, corporate governance, institutional shareholder and other organizations on the benefits of creating independent board committees in the aviation industry to oversee safety issues; and
Issue a “Concept Release” to solicit public input on the best corporate governance models to ensure that (a) aircraft safety is a priority for aviation companies (b) internal communication about safety is unfettered and if needed, reviewed at the board level, and (c) that whistleblower protections are meaningful.

All three of these initiatives will have an impact on future aviation safety and for shareholders and other stakeholders.

For the memory of 346 innocents – crew members and passengers – in the two Boeing 737 Max crashes and in the interest of truthful and full corporate disclosure beneficial to airline passenger safety and investor well-being, I have included the following materials for your review:

Testimony of retired Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, before the House Transportation Committee, June 19, 2019;
Make Passengers Safer? Boeing Just Made Shareholders Richer. By William Lazonick, American Prospect, June 25, 2018; and
Boeing and the Importance of Encouraging Employees to Speak Up By Amy C. Edmondson, Harvard Business Review, May 1, 2019.

I look forward to your response regarding the SEC taking the above proposed actions and to the enclosed materials.

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader

P.O. Box 19312

Washington, DC 20036

cc:

Commissioner Robert J. Jackson Jr.

Commissioner Hester M. Pierce

Commissioner Elad L. Roisman

Endnotes: 

     Benjamin Bain  and Matt Robinson , “Boeing Faces SEC Investigation Into Its 737 Max Disclosures,” Bloomberg,  May 24, 2019,  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl....
    See: Basic Inc. v. Levinson, 485 U.S. 224, 231-32 (1988) (quoting TSC Industries, Inc. v. Northway, Inc., 426 U.S. 438, 449 (1976)) (“[T]o fulfill the materiality requirement ‘there must be a substantial likelihood that the omitted fact would have been viewed by the reasonable investor as having significantly altered the ‘total mix’ of information made available.’”); see also 17 C.F.R. § 240.12b-2. For the purposes of this report, when we use the word “companies,” we are referring to those public companies subject to the registration and reporting requirements of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.”
      Hamza Shaban, “Boeing Shareholder Files Class-Action Lawsuit, Alleges Plane Maker Concealed 737 Max Safety Risks,” Washington Post, April 10, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/busine....
      Steve Miletich, “Boeing Shareholder Files Class-Action Suit over Fallout from 737 MAX Crashes,” Seattle Times, April 10, 2019, https://www.seattletimes.com/business....
      Michael Katz, “Boeing Faces Slew of Class-Action Suits over 737 MAX Crashes,” Chief Investment Officer, May 30, 2019, https://www.ai-cio.com/news/boeing-fa....
      Richard Seeks V. The Boeing Company, Dennis A. Muilenberg, and Gregory D. Smith, Case: 1.19-cv-02394,P.22 https://www.documentcloud.org/documen...
      Mark Matousek, “Boeing’s CEO Survived a Shareholder Vote Seeking to Prevent Him from Also Being the Company’s Board Chairman,”  Business Insider, April 29, 2019,  https://www.businessinsider.com/boein....
     Douglas MacMillan, “‘Safety Was Just a Given’: Inside Boeing’s Boardroom Amid the 737 Max Crisis,” Washington Post, May 5, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/busine....
     Dominic Gates and Steve Miletich, “Grand Jury Subpoena Shows Sweep of Criminal Probe into Boeing’s 737 MAX Certification,” Seattle Times, April 1, 2019, https://www.seattletimes.com/business....
   Amy C. Edmondson, “Boeing and the Importance of Encouraging Employees to Speak Up,” Harvard Business Review, May 4, 2019, https://hbr.org/2019/05/boeing-and-th....
   “The Facts on Trade,” Aerospace Industries Association, https://www.aia-aerospace.org/researc....
   “How Will Boeing Gain Market Share?,” Forbes, February 21, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspe....
   Concept Release. The Commission at times issues a “concept release” to seek public input to help identify theappropriate regulatory approach, if any, prior to issuing a rule proposal. In a concept release, SEC describes the area of interest and the Commission’s concerns; identifies different approaches to address the problem; and includes a series of questions that seek the views of the public on the issue. GAO Climate-Related Risks: SEC Has Taken Steps, GAO-18-188: Published: Feb 20, 2018. Publicly Released: Mar 22, 2018 https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-18-188

 

Trump Invites Debates Over Omnivorous Crony Capitalism

By Ralph Nader

June 27, 2019

Donald J. Trump’s 2020 election strategy is to connect his potential Democratic opponents with “socialism.” Trump plans to use this attack on the Democrats even if Senator Bernie Sanders, who proudly calls himself a “democratic socialist,” doesn’t become the presidential nominee (Sanders has been decisively re-elected in Vermont).

Senator Elizabeth Warren is distancing herself from the socialist “label.” She went so far as to tell the New England Council “I am a capitalist to my bones.”

Sanders and Warren are not what they claim to be. They are both updating Roosevelt’s New Deal and more closely resemble the Social Democrats that have governed western European democracies for years, delivering higher standards of living than that experienced by Americans.

The original doctrine of socialism meant government ownership of the means of production – heavy industries, railroads, banks, and the like. Nobody in national politics today is suggesting such a takeover. As one quipster put it, “How can Washington take ownership of the banks when the banks own Washington?”

Confronting Trump on the “socialism” taboo can open up a great debate about the value of government intervention for the good of the public. Sanders can effectively argue that people must choose either democratic socialism or the current failing system of corporate socialism. That choice is not difficult. Such an American democratic socialism could provide almost all of the long overdue solutions this country needs: full more efficient Medicare for all; tuition-free education; living wages; stronger unions; a tax system that works for the people; investments in infrastructure and public works; reforms for a massive, runaway military budget; the end of most corporate welfare; government promotion of renewable energies; and the end of subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear power.

In my presidential campaigns I tried to make corporate socialism – also called corporate welfare or crony capitalism – a major issue. Small business is capitalism – free to go bankrupt – while corporate capitalism – free to get bailouts from Washington – is really a form of corporate socialism. This point about a corporate government was documented many years ago in books such as America, Inc. (1971) by Morton Mintz and Jerry Cohen.

Now, it is even easier to make the case that our political economy is largely controlled by giant corporations and their political toadies. Today the concentration of power and wealth is staggering. Just six capitalist men have wealth to equal the wealth of half of the world’s population.

The Wall Street collapse of 2008-2009 destroyed eight million jobs, lost trillions of dollars in pension and mutual funds, and pushed millions of families to lose their homes. Against this backdrop, the U.S. government used trillions of taxpayer dollars to bail out, in various ways, the greedy, financial giants, whose reckless speculating caused the collapse.

In May 2009, the moderate Senator from Illinois, Dick Durbin, said: “The banks – hard to believe when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created – are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.”

Is there a single federal government agency or department that can say its most powerful outside influence is NOT corporate? Even the Labor Department and the National Labor Relations Board are under more corporate power than union power.

Who better than Trump, on an anti-socialist fantasy campaign kick, can call attention to the reality that Big Business controls the government and by extension controls the people?  In September 2000, a Business Week poll found over 70 percent of people agreeing that big business has too much control over their lives (this was before the horrific corporate crimes and scandals of the past two decades). Maybe that is why support in polls for “socialism” against “capitalism” in the U.S. is at a 60 year high.

People have long experienced American-style “socialism.” For example, the publicly owned water and electric utilities, public parks and forests, the Postal Service, public libraries, FDIC guarantees of bank deposits (now up to $250,000), Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, etc.

What the public is not sufficiently alert to is that Big Business has been profitably taking over control, if not outright ownership, of these public assets.

In the new book, Banking on the People, by Ellen Brown, readers can get an idea of the way large banks, insurers, and the giant shadow banking system – money market funds, hedge funds, mortgage brokers, and other unregulated financial intermediaries – speculate and shift deep risk and their failures onto Uncle Sam. These corporate predators gouge customers, and, remarkably, show a deep aversion for productive investment as if people matter.

Moreover, they just keep developing new, ever riskier, multi-tiered instruments (eg. derivatives) to make money from money through evermore complex, abstract, secret, reckless, entangled, globally destabilizing, networks. Gambling with other people’s money is a relentless Wall Street tradition.

The crashes that inevitably emerge end up impoverishing ordinary people who pay the price with their livelihoods.

Will the Democrats and other engaged people take on Trump, a corporate welfare king himself, tries to make “socialism” the big scare in 2020? Control of our political economy is not a conservative/liberal or red state/blue state issue. When confronted with the specifics of the corporate state or corporate socialism, people from all political persuasions will recognize the potential perils to our democracy. No one wants to lose essential freedoms or to continue to pay the price of this runaway crony capitalism.

The gigantic corporations have been built with the thralldom of deep debt – corporate debt to fund stock buybacks (while reporting record profits), consumer debt, student loan debt, and, of course, government debt caused by drastic corporate and super-rich tax cuts. Many trillions of dollars have been stolen from future generations.

No wonder a small group of billionaires, including George Soros, Eli Broad, and Nick Hanauer, have just publicly urged a modest tax on the super wealthy. As Hanauer, a history buff and advocate of higher minimum wages, says – “the pitchforks are coming.”

Congressional Interns and Congress Redirections—A Meeting

By Ralph Nader

June 19, 2019

On a beautiful, breezy day last week, I spoke to a roomful of Congressional summer interns working in the House of Representatives. The subject was “Corporate Power, Congress and You.” (“You” referred to the interns as the citizenry).

I noted that they were a special group because they were willing to spend an hour listening to a talk about corporate power. I told them about how small groups of ordinary citizens became leaders in the nuclear arms control movements, the anti-tobacco drives, and consumer rights movement. I also talked about the expansion of equal rights and opportunities for people with disabilities. I took note that many of them in the room – women and people of color— would not be there if not for their predecessors’ tireless efforts to advance civil rights.

No more than one percent of Americans – sometimes far less – made the many advances in peace and justice take hold, backed by a growing public opinion.

In the 15,000 or 20,000 days these young people have, it will be their responsibility to stop the following omnicidal threats to humanity and the natural world:

Climate crisis or climate disruption, which is already wreaking havoc. A student asked me about the ‘Green New Deal’, which urges dramatic action. I recommend that they make the strong case that we must plan ahead for the sake of the planet. It will cost trillions to solarize our economy and otherwise reduce greenhouse gases, but that pales in comparison to the trillions of dollars that will have to be spent on mitigating the effects of climate catastrophe, which would fundamentally damage our fragile planet. In fact, International Renewable Energy Agency research found that transitioning to renewable energy will save between “$65 trillion and $160 trillion [between now and] 2050.”  These costs would include spending to save coastal cities from ocean over-runs and all the other violent weather patterns and convulsions in habitat coming on this fragile planet Earth.
A runaway nuclear arms race between countries, which threatens to cause untold destruction. A nuclear arms race can increase the risk of nuclear weaponry being used on innocents, whether intentionally or by accidental computerized launch. Donald J. Trump seems to think that ending our treaties with Russia (without Senate approval) regarding reduction of nuclear war heads will “make America great again.”
Global pandemics caused by mutations of viruses and bacteria are a lethal threat. Malaria, dengue fever, and transmittable deadly avian flu are just a few of the diseases that have the potential to spread further because of habitat disruption, tourism, and travel. The U.S. is spending far too little money to protect its people from such invisible disease vectors. Less than a fourth each year of what one redundant aircraft carrier (largely obsolete except for purposes of Empire force projection) costs. While Americans today might not think much of this threat, millions of Americans died in the 1919-1920 flu pandemic.
Endemic poverty and grave inequalities afflict billions of human beings. Roughly one in four children in the world suffers from chronic malnutrition, if not semi-starvation. Most will wither in pain and resignation. Some will be searching for vengeance using physical violence against the institutionalized violence of global corporations and corrupt governments taking their favors.
The emerging corporate fascistic states are dispossessing the citizenry of their rights, remedies, and facilities to organize and express their voices. The U.S. is now a maturing corporate state. Wall Street owns more of Washington and turns our government against its own people while feeding privileges, immunities and gigantic freebies and tax escapes to demanding global companies. When commercial values are allowed supremacy over citizen values, societies decline relentlessly.

I continued my remarks about how corporations have been given by the Federal Courts the same rights as human beings. Even though, neither the words “corporation” or “company” ever appear in our Constitution. Add this corporate “personhood” to the expanding privileges and immunities of corporate power, in these times of corporate crime waves, and equal justice under law between U.S. citizens and Exxon/Mobil or Pfizer or Wells Fargo is a cruel mockery.

I told the students to look at the fine print contracts they sign or click on that have taken away their precious freedom of contract and sometimes their historic right to pursue wrongdoers in court.

What is worse, youngsters grow up ‘corporate’ rather than grow up ‘civic’ – think of all the corporate ads they are subjected to that are not contradicted. Young people don’t even realize what has been stripped away from their rightful protections.

Interns are spending the summer with Congress – the smallest yet most powerful branch of government in the Constitution – where some 1,500 corporations have undermined the peoples’ delegated power. These corporations rent or own a majority of the Senators and Representatives and tell them how to vote on many serious matters.

Yet, as Patti Smith sings, the people do have the power, if they wish to exercise it. People have formidable democratic tools – they are the sovereign power, they have the vote. They own the greatest wealth in the country (vast public lands, public airwaves, and trillions of dollars in pension and mutual funds, which own the stocks of large corporations).  The peoples’ tax dollars have led to government-sponsored research and development that have spawned the major industries of our times.

Led by one percent of active citizens in their communities the people – left and right – can achieve a living wage economy, full health insurance, law and order for corporations, a fair tax system, and organizing rights for workers, consumers, and small taxpayers. We can develop solar energy capabilities quicker. Our public budgets can be redirected to critical domestic public works infrastructure and away from costly Empire building abroad.

Students informed me of their focus on electoral reforms, the use of manipulative euphemisms, and opportunities for work in civic engagement. I was encouraged.

Most picked up our materials, including the card on how to reform Congress (see ratsreformcongress.org). They left the room, I hope, with higher civic expectations for themselves.

Unpublished Letter to the Washington Post Editor

March 14, 2019

Dear Editor:

Regarding the op-ed by the Dalai Lama and Arthur C. Brooks: “All of Us Can Break the Cycle of Hatred,” March 11, 2019.

Did the Dalai Lama, with his message of love and peace, realize that Arthur C. Brooks, President of the American Enterprise Institute, runs the most concentrated center of lawless war advocates and opponents of government mandated life-saving health and safety standards in the United States? The list of these monetized, cold-blooded minds is a rogues gallery of people who, like John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz and John Yoo, held high positions in a war crimes government, including having key roles in the Iraq catastrophe. Brooks has the gall to quote Jesus “Love your enemies” and the contagion of “warm-heartedness.”

This column gives a new dimension to brazen hypocrisy.

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader

It is Time to Rediscover Print Newspapers

By Ralph Nader

June 12, 2019

Friends often ask me why I spend so much time reading print versions of newspapers. I respond with the usual general reasons about learning what is happening, worsening or improving, in the world. I also point out that I send people helpful clippings.

Unfortunately, my responses do not get many people to expand their print newspaper reading time. Some recent topics that caught my attention might encourage you to revisit the printed version of your newspapers:

“It’s the middle of the night. Do you know who your iPhone is talking to?” The Washington Post’s Geoffrey A. Fowler says this is not true. With his screen off, he showed 5,400 hidden app trackers guzzled his data in a single week. Shame Apple and CEO Tim Cook. You lied.
“Take a Page From Kids Who Care” – The Washington Post’s Christina Barron starts with the now famous Greta Thunberg’s weekly protests on climate disruption before the Swedish Parliament and goes on to reference eight new books “in which kids engage, in ways big and small, to better the world.”
“,” by Karen Tumulty of The Washington Post. About time a writer did this. When will reporters stop being Trump’s bullhorn for his scornful, ugly nicknames, without printing rebuttals or nicknames coined by Trump critics– like “Draft-dodging Donald,” or “Lying Donald,” or “Corrupt Donald,” for example.
“MacKenzie Bezos Pledges to Give Half of her $36 billion Fortune to Charity,” by Washington Post’s Rachel Siegel. One very rich couple’s divorce may mean better lives and saving lives for many people if Ms. Bezos spends money to promote justice and we might need less charity. Her Foundation is coming.
“The Shadow Banks are back with another Big Bad Credit Bubble,” by The Washington Post’s incomparable Steve Pearlstein. With weak or no regulation of these speculators/lenders, there may be a replay of the 2008 financial crisis.
“Many teens sleep with their phones, survey finds—just like their parents” by The Washington Post’s Craig Timberg. This practice undermines “cognitive function and mental health while increasing obesity rates” and causing household conflicts.
Joshua A. Douglas is out with a key book,  Vote for US: How to Take Back Our Elections and Change the Future of Voting . Reclaiming the electoral process is crucial for our democracy and –to improve the quality of life in our country.
“Why We May all Have to Give Up Pork”—letter to the editor of The Washington Post by Patricia E. Perry. She cites documented infectious diseases and Trump’s move to sideline federal inspectors and allow even more self-inspection by the meat packers wanting to speed up the slaughter-processing assembly lines. Ugh!
“Hogan Will Not Challenge Trump, Leaving Trump’s GOP Critics with Limited Options,” by The Washington Post’s Robert Costa. Like Maryland governor Larry Hogan, other fearful, viable challengers like Senator Mitt Romney, former Ohio governor John Kasich, Arizona ex-Senator Jeff Flake, and former U.S. trade representative Carla Hills aren’t going to challenge Trump. Trump is clearing the Republican primary field with foul mouthed intimidation. No matter these Republican politicians really believe Trump is a clear and present danger to our Republic and to the future of the Republican Party. Only the laid back former governor, William Weld, has his hat in the ring.
“The NFL Has Finally Been Consumed by the Concussion Issue. Why Hasn’t the NHL?” by The New York Times’ John Branch. Consumed, that is, after years of cover-ups. The Hockey bosses literally stage fights between players kept on the team just to fight for the boisterous crowds. Head injuries have taken the lives and diminished the brain functions of scores of players over their shortened lives. This is criminal and sets a bad example for youthful amateur sports where concussions are not taken seriously enough. See our Leagueoffans.org.
“Art Festival is Welcome, But Not the Huge Crowds,” by The New York Times’Helene Stapinski. The 13th annual free “Figment Arts Festival” on Roosevelt Island is overwhelmed by 30,000 visitors. “Huge crowds forced the tram to shut down and the bridge to close, overwhelming the subway platform.” Makes you wonder why civic conferences, open free to the public, dealing with the most precious matters of livelihood, peace, and justice beg to fill the empty seats.
“If Trump Doesn’t Warrant Impeachment, Who Does?” by The Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson. It’s useful to have Robinson list many of Trump’s impeachable offenses in one place. He still left out several serious acts such as blatantly, openly dismantling the enforcement of health and safety laws in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the law and conducting illegal wars without Congressional declarations and appropriations.
“The Cybersecurity 202: Democratic Base Fired Up by Effort to Ban Internet-Connected Voting Machines.” By Joseph Marks of The Washington Post. Why not an easy solution? While we are at it, why not adopt the Canadian system of paper ballots fully counted by 11pm on election day in that vast country with no proprietary software and corrupt procurement of voting machines.
“When will the Republican Silence on Trump End?” An op-ed by William S. Cohen, former Senator from Maine and Secretary of Defense. Hmm, when will Mr. Cohen decide to practice what he preaches and run against Trump in the Republican primaries?
“Why are so many doctors burning out? Tons of real and electronic paperwork,” by Daniel Marchalik in The Washington Post. Physicians are quitting because they have too little time to practice medicine. Not so in Canada where they have Medicare for all and almost no billing nightmares for themselves and their patients.

Newspaper publishers want readers to discover that print versions of newspapers can expose you to content that you don’t already agree with or like online. You aren’t likely to go searching for an article saying “You can’t stop Robocalls, You Shouldn’t Have to.” The New York Times put Brian Chen’s article on this topic on a page for you. By reading the print edition of a newspaper, you might just see something that your online news alerts or search engine algorithms don’t automatically present.

FAA’s Boeing-biased Officials: Recuse Yourselves or Resign

By Ralph Nader

June 7, 2019

The Boeing-driven FAA is rushing to unground the notorious prone-to-stall Boeing 737 MAX (that killed 346 innocents in two crashes) before several official investigations are completed. Troubling revelations might keep these planes grounded worldwide.

The FAA has a clearly established pro-Boeing bias and will likely allow Boeing to unground the 737 MAX. We must demand that the two top FAA officials resign or recuse themselves from taking any more steps that might endanger the flying public. The two Boeing-indentured men are Acting FAA Administrator Daniel Elwell and Associate FAA Administrator for Aviation Safety Ali Bahrami.

Immediately after the crashes, Elwell resisted grounding and echoed Boeing claims that the Boeing 737 MAX was a safe plane despite the deadly crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia.

Ali Bahrami is known for aggressively pushing the FAA through 2018 to further abdicate its regulatory duties by delegating more safety inspections to Boeing. Bahrami’s actions benefit Boeing and are supported by the company’s toadies in the Congress. Elwell and Bahrami have both acquired much experience by going through the well-known revolving door between the industry and the FAA.  They are likely to leave the FAA once again for lucrative positions in the aerospace lobbying or business world. With such prospects, they do not have much ‘skin in the game’ for their pending decision.

The FAA has long been known for its non-regulatory, waiver-driven, de-regulatory traditions. It has a hard time saying NO to the aircraft manufacturers and the airlines. After the aircraft hijackings directing flights to Cuba in the 1960s and 1970s, the FAA let the airlines say NO to installing hardened cockpit doors and stronger latches in their planes. These security measures would have prevented the hijackers from invading the cockpits of the aircrafts on September 11, 2001. The airlines did not want to spend the $3000 per plane. Absent the 9/11 hijackings, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney might not have gone to war in Afghanistan.

The FAA’s historic “tombstone” mentality (slowly reacting after the crashes) is well known. For example, in the 1990s the FAA had a delayed reaction to numerous fatal crashes caused by antiquated de-icing rules. The FAA was also slow to act on ground-proximity warning requirements for commuter airlines and flammability reduction rules for aircraft cabin materials.

That’s the tradition that Elwell and Bahrami inherited and have worsened. They did not even wait for Boeing to deliver its reworked software before announcing in April that simulator training would not be necessary for the pilots. This judgment was contrary to the experience of seasoned pilots such as Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger. Simulator training would delay ungrounding and cost the profitable airlines money.

Boeing has about 5,000 orders for the 737 MAX. It has delivered less than 400 to the world’s airlines. From its CEO, Dennis Muilenburg to its swarms of Washington lobbyists, law firms, and public relations outfits, Boeing is used to getting its way. Its grip on Congress – where 300 members take campaign cash from Boeing – is legendary. Boeing pays little in federal and Washington state taxes. It fumbles contracts with NASA and the Department of Defense but remains the federal government’s big vendor for lack of competitive alternatives in a highly concentrated industry.

Right now, the Boeing/FAA strategy is to make sure Elwell and his FAA quickly decide that the MAX is safe for takeoff by delaying or stonewalling Congressional and other investigations.

The compliant Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, under Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS), strangely has not scheduled anymore hearings. The Senate confirmation of Stephen Dickson to replace acting chief Elwell is also on a slow track. A new boss at the FAA might wish to take some time to review the whole process.

Time is not on the side of the 737 MAX 8. A comprehensive review of the 737 MAX’s problems is a non-starter for Boeing. Boeing’s flawed software and instructions that have kept pilots and airlines in the dark have already been exposed. New whistleblowers and more revelations will emerge. More time may also result in the Justice Department’s operating grand jury issuing some indictments. More time would let the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, led by Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-OR) dig into the failure of accountability and serial criminal negligence of Boeing and its FAA accomplices. Chairman DeFazio knows the history of the FAA’s regulatory capture.

Not surprising on June 4, 2019, DeFazio sent a stinging letter to FAA’s Elwell and his corporatist superior, Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao, about the FAA’s intolerable delays in sending requested documents to the Committee. DeFazio’s letter says: “To say we are disappointed and a bit bewildered at the ongoing delays to appropriately respond to our records requests would be an understatement.”

The FAA and its Boeing pals are using the “trade secret” claims to censor records sought by the House Committee. When it comes to investigating life or death airline hazards and crashes, Congress is capable of handling so-called trade secrets. This is all the more reason why the terminally prejudiced Elwell and Bahrami should step aside and let their successors take a fresh look at the Boeing investigations. That effort would include opening up the certification process for the entire Boeing MAX as a “new plane.”

The Boeing-biased Elwell and Bahrami have refused to even raise in public proceedings the question: “After eight or more Boeing 737 iterations, at what point does the Boeing MAX 8 become a new plane?”  Many, including Cong. David Price (D-NC), chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee, which oversees the FAA’s budget, have already questioned the limited certification process.

Heavier engines on the old 737 fuselage changed the MAX’s aerodynamics and made it prone-to-stall. It is time for the FAA’s leadership to change before the 737 MAX flies with vulnerable, glitch-prone software “fixes”.

Notwithstanding the previous Boeing 737 series’ record of safety in the U.S. during the past decade – (one fatality), Boeing’s bosses, have now disregarded warnings by its own engineers. Boeing executives do not get one, two, three or anymore crashes attributed to their ignoring long-known aerodynamic engineering practices.

The Boeing 737 MAX must never be allowed to fly again, given the structural design defects built deeply into its system.

Society Is In Decay – When the Worst is First and the Best is Last

By Ralph Nader

May 29, 2019

Plutocrats like to control the range of permissible public dialogue. Plutocrats also like to shape what society values. If you want to see where a country’s priorities lie, look at how it allocates its money. While teachers and nurses earn comparatively little for performing critical jobs, corporate bosses including those who pollute our planet and bankrupt defenseless families, make millions more. Wells Fargo executives are cases in point. The vastly overpaid CEO of General Electric left his teetering company in shambles. In 2019, Boeing’s CEO got a bonus (despite the Lion Air Flight 610 737 Max 8 crash in 2018). Just days before a second deadly 737 Max 8 crash in Ethiopia.

This disparity is on full display in my profession. Public interest lawyers and public defenders, who fight daily for a more just and lawful society, are paid modest salaries. On the other hand, the most well compensated lawyers are corporate lawyers who regularly aid and abet corporate crime, fraud, and abuse. Many corporate lawyers line their pockets by shielding the powerful violators from accountability under the rule of law.

Physicians who minister to the needy poor and go to the risky regions, where Ebola or other deadly infectious diseases are prevalent, are paid far less than cosmetic surgeons catering to human vanities. Does any rational observer believe that the best movies and books are also the most rewarded? Too often the opposite is true. Stunningly gripping documentaries earn less than 1 percent of what is garnered by the violent, pornographic, and crude movies at the top of the ratings each week.

On my weekly radio show, I interview some of the most dedicated authors who accurately document perils to health and safety. The authors on my program expose pernicious actions and inactions that jeopardize people’s daily lives. These guests offer brilliant, practical solutions for our widespread woes (see ralphnaderradiohour.com). Their important books, usually go unnoticed by the mass media, barely sell a few thousand copies, while the best-seller lists are dominated by celebrity biographies. Ask yourself, when preventable and foreseeable disasters occur, which books are more useful to society?

The monetary imbalance is especially jarring when it comes to hawks who beat the drums of war. For example, people who push for our government to start illegal wars (eg. John Bolton pushing for the war in Iraq) are rewarded with top appointments. Former government officials also get very rich when they take jobs in the defense industry. Do you remember anyone who opposed the catastrophic Iraq War getting such lucrative rewards?

The unknown and unrecognized people who harvest our food are on the lowest rung of the income ladder despite the critical role they play in our lives. Near the top of the income ladder are people who gamble on the prices of food via the commodities market and those who drain the nutrients out of natural foods and sell the junk food that remains, with a dose of harmful additives. Agribusiness tycoons profit from this plunder.

Those getting away with major billing fraud grow rich. While those people trying to get our government to do something about $350 billion dollars in health care billing fraud this year – like Harvard Professor Malcolm K. Sparrow – live on a college professor’s salary.

Hospital executives, who each make millions of dollars a year, preside over an industry where about 5,000 patients die every week from preventable problems in U.S. hospitals, according to physicians at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The watchdogs who call out this deadly hazard live on a fraction of that amount as they try to save lives.

Even in sports, where people think the best athletes make the most money, the reverse is more often true. Just ask a red-faced Brian Cashman, the Yankees GM, who, over twenty years, has spent massive sums on athletes who failed miserably to produce compared to far lesser-paid baseball players. Look at today’s top ranked Yankees – whose fifteen “stars” are injured, while their replacements are playing spectacularly for much smaller compensation than their high priced teammates.

A major reason why our society’s best are so often last while our worst are first is the media’s infatuation with publicizing the worst and ignoring the best. Warmongers get press. The worst politicians are most frequently on the Sunday morning TV shows – not the good politicians or civic leaders with proven records bettering our society.

Ever see Congressman Pascrell (Dem. N.J.) on the Sunday morning news shows? Probably not. He’s a leader who is trying to reform Congress so that it is open, honest, capable and represents you the people. Surely you have heard of Senator Lindsey Graham (Rep. S.C.) who is making ugly excuses for Donald Trump, always pushing for war and bloated military budgets, often hating Muslims and Arabs and championing the lawless American Empire. He is always in the news, having his say.

Take the 162 people who participated in our Superbowl of Civic Action at Constitution Hall in Washington D.C. in May and September 2016. These people have and are changing America. They are working to make food, cars, drugs, air, water, medical devices, and drinking water safer. Abuses by corporations against consumers, workers and small taxpayers would be worse without them. Our knowledge of solutions and ways to treat people fairly and abolish poverty and advance public services is greater because of their courageous hard work. (see breakingthroughpower.org).

The eight days of this Civic Superbowl got far less coverage than did Tiger Woods losing another tournament that year or the dismissive nicknames given by the foul-mouth Trump to his mostly wealthy Republican opponents on just one debate stage.

All societies need play, entertainment, and frivolity. But a media obsessed with giving 100 times the TV and radio time, using our public airwaves for free, to those activities than to serious matters crucial to the most basic functioning of our society is assuring that the worst is first and the best is last. Just look at your weekly TV Guide.

If the whole rotted-out edifice comes crashing down, there won’t be enough coerced taxpayer dollars anymore to save the Plutocrats, with their limitless greed and power. Maybe then the best can have a chance to be first.

 

What and Who Gave Us Trump?

By Ralph Nader

May 22, 2019

Donald J. Trump’s presidential ambition has simmered for decades. He was and is a regular TV watcher and saw the changing political landscape. One by one, previous presidents diminished the integrity of the presidency and violated the rule of law, paving the way for Trump’s candidacy.

Bill Clinton was exposed for serial adulteries and abuses of women and lied under oath. This perjury led to him being impeached in the House (though he was acquitted in the Senate). “Hmm,” thought Donald, a serial abuser of women, “Clinton got away with it and was elected twice.” One potentially career-ending violation no longer had the weight it once did.

Then came George W. Bush – selected by the Electoral College and a Republican Supreme Court. “Hmm,” thought Donald to himself, “Even though Gore won the popular vote, Bush won because of Electors in swing states.”  Despite Gore’s crushing loss, the Democratic Party refused to support ongoing Electoral College reform (see nationalpopularvote.com). Once in office, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney lied repeatedly to start an unconstitutional illegal war with Iraq, which caused huge Iraqi and U.S. casualties and wreaked havoc on the U.S. budget. Bush and Cheney not only got away with these atrocities, but were reelected. A majority of voters believed their lies.  Violating the laws did not matter. “Hmm,” thought Donald to himself, “The President is above the law.” Positions of power and the trampling of laws appealed to Trump, a lawless, failed gambling czar.

Then along came Obama. He too got away with all kinds of slaughter abroad without authority of the Constitution, statutes, or international treaties. He too was reelected. Domestically, Obama did not prosecute any of the big Wall Street crooks that brought down our economy in 2008-2009, even though a vast majority of the population loathed these reckless financiers. With all of these misdeeds and violations of law on full display, Trump a big business crook himself, must have thought that he would not be held accountable. Even better, he knew how to use television to manipulate the media to his advantage. These examples are just some of the major ways that past presidents, Democrats especially, handed Trump his opportunity. I describe these and other presidential abuses of power in my recent book, To the Ramparts: How Bush and Obama Paved the Way for the Trump Presidency, and Why It Isn’t Too Late to Reverse Course.

Given these inoculations for breaking social norms and laws, Trump felt he could break additional norms and laws and still secure the Presidency. It almost didn’t work – Hillary Clinton’s campaign bungling lost three key states, which provided Trump a path to the White House. The crazy, antiquated Electoral College sealed the deal.

Trump has always known how to use power to get more power. He went after his opponents with harsh nicknames, repeated verbatim by a supine press. The name calling stuck and influenced voters. Democrats did not reciprocate with nicknames like “cheating Donald,” “corrupt Donald,” “Dangerous Donald,” etc.

Emboldened, Trump, with his television knowhow, grasped that many people prefer fiction to non-fiction. Fantasy is big business and it can serve to distract from grim real-life injustices.  Day after day, the mass media proved this point by giving huge time to entertainment compared to news and civic engagements locally and nationally.

Donald, through his daily tweets and assertions, shaped a story – true or not, that would help him win the White House. Reporters have collected over 10,000 of Trumps lies and seriously misleading statements since he became President (see the complete list here via the Washington Post).

But Trump, with his 50 million Twitter followers, has his own media machine, which grows because the mass media replays so many of his fictions as if they were real.

Still, the Democrats should have defeated him handily and, failing that, should have since driven his poll numbers below 40 or 42 percent, where they hover.

Democrats having lost the crucial election of 2010 in Congress, most state legislatures and governorships, Democrats lost the gerrymandering battle. This set the stage for Republicans to seriously suppress the vote in many ways documented by the League of Women Voters and the Brennan Center. Some of this suppression occurred in key swing states like Wisconsin.

Today, Trump seems impervious to the many accurate accusations of corruptions and impeachable offenses. He ruthlessly scuttles lifesaving health/safety protections for the American people, undermines law enforcement, and breaks his repeated promises to provide “great” health insurance, “pure” clean air, and jobs for workers displaced by globalization. The norms that restrain politicians and their constitutional duty to “faithfully execute the laws” have been deeply eroded.

Trump is undeterred by the hundreds of syndicated columns and the regular television commentary by leading conservatives who despise him. George Will, Michael Gerson, Max Boot, David Brooks, Bret Stephens, and others have gone after Trump repeatedly. The attacks on the Prevaricator in Chief are like water off a duck’s back. Even Trump’s trail of broken campaign promises is routinely overlooked by the press and the Trump base.

Next week my column will address what to do to make Trump a one-term President. Only a landslide defeat in 2020 will keep Trump from tweeting “fake election” and demanding a recount.

Trump: Importing Dangerous Medicines and Food and Keeping Consumers in the Dark

By Ralph Nader

May 15, 2019

Conservatives favor consumer choice. Consumer information is vital to make that choice meaningful. Corporatists, masquerading as conservatives, do not care about informed consumer choice. Donald Trump is a corporatist, as are the vast majority of Republicans in his Cabinet and in Congress. Corporatists do not even want you to know where products are made. Today, producers and retail sellers do not have to tell you the “country of origin” for meat and pork products. Before 2015, when Congress bowed to the dictates of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Congress had enacted a law that required country of origin labels on meat products.

People wanted to know whether the beef and pork sold in their local stores was from the U.S., or Canada, Brazil, China, Mexico, or South Africa, among other importers. But after the WTO judges in Geneva, Switzerland decided, bizarrely, that “country of origin” labeling was an impermissible non-tariff trade barrier, Congress meekly passed a bill that repealed the labeling law and President Obama signed this legislation into law.

While Donald Trump claims to reject “free trade” treaties, he has been silent on country of origin regulations. State Cattlemen’s Associations want laws mandating country of origin labels, believing that consumers are more trusting of the U.S. meat industry than the meat industries in most other countries. These associations know that the U.S.D.A. Food Safety and Inspection Service has a much less rigorous inspection process for imported meats. Unfortunately, the rest of the meat industry likes to import meat, without labeling, and mix it up with the U.S. products. Trump – a prodigious meat eater has yet to tweet in favor of the American cattle industry, even though many people in this part of the U.S. meat industry voted for him in 2016.

Even worse, we cannot tell where our drugs are being manufactured. Rosemary Gibson, author of China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine thinks American patients are endangered by imported medicines. Gibson is about to testify before Congress on her very disturbing findings regarding importation of medicines from China. I’ve been trying to get the attention of Donald Trump, his Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, and the Secretary of Agriculture, Sunny Perdue, regarding risks with importation of food and drugs. Letters, emails, and calls have been met with silence. By not responding, they’re telling us who they primarily support—corporate profiteering interests. That is one reason why Trump has broken his promise to the American people to bring down staggeringly high drug prices.

It will be harder for the Trump administration to ignore journalist Katherine Eban . Eban provides us with a terrifying glimpse of her new book, Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom, in a New York Times article published on Sunday May 11, 2019. The article, “Americans Need Generic Drugs, But Can They Trust Them?” exposes the widespread unsafe conditions in many Indian and Chinese labs and plants that manufacture generic drugs for the U.S. market (generics amount to 90 percent of the U.S. supply of drugs). One of her sources was an intrepid Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspector, Peter Baker (he has since left the agency).

Baker was a bold and honest auditor. He refused to announce lab inspections in advance, as is FDA’s lackadaisical practice. From 2012 to 2018, Baker discovered “fraud or deceptive practices in almost four-fifths of the drug plants he inspected” in India and China. Indian and Chinese manufacturers engaged in data manipulation that could prove deadly.

At one firm, the Wockhardt plant in India, Baker caught the company knowingly releasing insulin vials containing metallic fragments from a defective sterilizing machine into Indian and foreign markets. Eban reports that “[Baker] learned that the company had been using the same defective equipment to make a sterile injectable cardiac drug for the American market.” Two months later, the FDA banned imports from that plant.

Eban continues, shockingly: “In some instances, deceptions and other practices have contributed to generic drugs with toxic impurities, unapproved ingredients and dangerous particulates reaching American patients.” This is nothing new. In 2008, at least 81 American patients died in hospitals after being given heparin, a blood thinner that contained a contaminated ingredient from China.

You’d think that the FDA would demand from Trump more inspectors abroad and the U.S. Department of Agriculture would ask the White House for more U.S.D.A. Food and Safety inspectors, along with tougher laws and penalties on unsafe imports to transmit to Congress. After all, the sheer scope of U.S. drug companies going to China and India to produce drugs cheaply, so as to swell their already swollen profits, is simply stunning.

Another chilling statistic from Eban is that “Nearly forty percent of all our generic drugs are made in India. Eighty percent of active ingredients for both our brand and generic drugs come from abroad, the majority from India and China… America makes almost none of its own antibiotics anymore” (My emphasis). The outsourcing of the production of drugs to foreign countries presents vast challenges for health and safety regulators.

One would think this surrender to imports, whose sole purpose is to fatten U.S. drug companies’ profits, would be considered both a consumer safety threat and a national security matter. Why isn’t Trump doing anything to keep Americans safe from dangerous foreign products, as he crows about tariffs?

Of course the FDA responds with their usual phony assurances about its reliable inspections, putting out a statement that reads: “The F.D.A. inspects all brand-name and generic manufacturing facilities around the world which manufacture product for the U.S. market.”

Is that why the FDA, which has largely conducted unannounced inspections of U.S. plants, still allows pre-announcement of the vast majority of its foreign inspections? Eban reports, the FDA investigators are treated as “the company’s guests and agree on an inspection date in advance…Plant officials have served as hosts and helped to arrange local travel.”

Messrs. Trump, Azar, and Perdue better wake up before innocent Americans lose their lives due to corporate indentured government officials failing to properly do their jobs. Do they want a major disaster to land on their derelict desks?

They are on full public notice.