Ralph Nader's Blog, page 54

Obama Can Do More on Oil Prices

By Ralph Nader



Gasoline and heating oil prices are ratcheting up. In California, some motorists are paying over $5 per gallon. President Obama declared that "there is no quick fix" for this problem. Meanwhile, the hapless but howling Republicans are blaming him for the fuel surge as if he is a price control czar.



Indeed, President Obama has some proper power to cool off retail petroleum prices. David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan's Budget Director, said it plainly on CNN last week, "Stop beating the war drums right now [against Iran], and Obama could do that, and he could say the neocons are history." Having done his stint on Wall Street, Stockman knows that war talk by the war hawks inside and outside of our government is just what the speculators on the New York Mercantile Exchange want to hear as they bid up the price. Your gasoline prices are not charging up due to strains between supply and demand. Speculation, with those notorious derivatives and swaps, is what is poking larger holes in your fuel budget, according to Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement lawyers. The too-big-to-fail Wall Street gamblers - Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley - are at it again.
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Minimum Wage: Catching up with 1968

By Ralph Nader



How inert can the Democratic Party be? Do they really want to defeat the Congressional Republicans in the fall by doing the right thing?



A winning issue is to raise the federal minimum wage, stuck at $7.25 since 2007. If it was adjusted for inflation since 1968, not to mention other erosions of wage levels, the federal minimum would be around $10.



Here are some arguments for raising the minimum wage this year to catch up with 1968 when worker productivity was half of what it is today.


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'Most Gifted Foreign Correspondent in a Generation"

By Ralph Nader



Anthony Shadid, called the "most gifted foreign correspondent in a generation" by his then Washington Post colleague, Rajiv Chandrasekaran (author of the widely heralded book "Imperial Life in the Emerald City"), didn't really need a byline. For anyone who knew of his peerless, unique reports from the Middle East would read them and just know they were a Shadid special.



Alas, there will be no more Shadid reports and features from the streets, alleys, souks, homes, hospitals, workplaces and cultures of the Arab countries. For on an assignment from The New York Times in a dangerous, mountainous area of Syria last week, this humble, brilliant, nuanced, generous, honest, brave double-Pulitzer-Prize winner (with another one likely on the way) died from an apparent asthma attack together with severe allergic reactions and exhaustion.


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The NHL: Boxing Without A License?

Call it what you will, but staged, premeditated or planned fighting in the National Hockey League (NHL), where two big "enforcers" slug each other's heads with their bare fists, has no place in the game of hockey. Such fighting is boxing and as such requires a boxing license under many state laws.
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Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader Calls for SEC Investigation of Pete Peterson, Blackstone and BlackRock

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:



On behalf of Ralph Nader, the Mayer Law Group today asked the SEC to

open an investigation and/or enforcement action regarding actions by

Peter Peterson, BlackRock and Blackstone.



The Mayer Law Group submitted evidence that Peterson, Blackstone and

BlackRock sold to investors, including Mr. Nader, the Blackstone North

America Income and Opportunity Fund ("BNA Trust") which was falsely

presented to the public as a safe and secure fund investing in

government securities when in fact the fund held risky and volatile

derivative instruments.



In the complaint to the SEC, Mr. Mayer, on behalf of Mr. Nader said,

"These transactions and fraudulent misrepresentations took place years

ago, in the 1990s, but we are bringing this matter to the attention of

the Commission now because we believe that this is one of the earliest,

if not the earliest example, of Wall Street firms deceiving investors

and regulators by disguising ultra-risky investment products as safe

government-backed securities."



A full copy of the letter is available here: seccomplaint.pdf

Can Democrats Landslide Republicans?

By Ralph Nader



I often ask Congressional Democrats these days is: "If you agree that your Republican counterparts in Congress are the most craven, corporatist, fact-denying, falsifying, anti-99 percent, militaristic Republicans in the party's history, then why are you not landsliding them?" Their responses are largely in the form of knowing smiles and furrowed brows.



There are answers that are more specific to account for the large election losses in 2010, the loss of the House of Representatives to John Boehner and Eric Cantor, and the prospect of losing the House and the Senate this November. Chief among them is that the two parties are vigorously dialing for the same commercial dollars to finance their campaigns. The resultant inhibitions and self-censorships bring the parties' real agendas closer together, erasing the bright lines that make elections clearer choices for voters.
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Letter to Nestle Pure Life Regarding Their Use of the Denver Public Water Supply

January 26, 2012



Nestle Waters

11700 E 47th Ave,

Denver, CO 80239



Dear Mr. Franceschetti,



The bottles of water you call Nestle Pure Life discloses on its label that the source is
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Follow the Bills

Looking at millions of individual bills that makeup the 2.7 trillion dollars of annual health care costs opens a gigantic window on the massive waste, redundancy, profiteering, fraud and sometimes criminal over-billing.
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The Jirga Medal of Honor

The U.S. war in Afghanistan is testing so much futuristic detect and destroy weaponry that it can be called the most advanced all-seeing invasion in military history. From blanket satellite surveillance to soldiers' infra-red vision to the remotely guided photographing, killer drones to the latest fused ground-based imagery and electronic signal intercepts, the age of robotic land, sea, and air weaponry is at hand.
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Letter to President Obama Re: The State of the Union Address

January 20, 2012



Dear President Obama:



As you prepare your State of the Union address, please be advised that those who support you are very cognizant of what you do not mention in such annual presentations to the Nation. For example, last year, environmentalists were shocked that global warming-climate change received no attention. Nor did raising the minimum wage, as you promised in 2008 to $9.50 by 2011.




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