Ralph Nader's Blog, page 64

Statement on Jeep Grand Cherokee Recall

Milano Italy

For Release

January 26, 2011



Statement of Ralph Nader



The 1993-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee is a modern day Pinto for soccer moms with a fuel tank located dangerously behind the rear axle in the crush zone of an impact. In the United States alone, there have been 184 fatal fire crashes in Jeep Grand Cherokees which have resulted in 269 deaths from 1993 through 2009. In 2005 during the merger with Daimler Benz, Chrysler moved the fuel tank forward of the rear axle to the safer location preferred by German engineers and used in Mercedes models. The unsafe location of the fuel tank is worsened by the dangerous position of the fuel filler hose. In 1993-1998 Grand Cherokees, the filler hose goes through the frame rail and is pulled out of the fuel tank as the frame rail bends upward at the hole for the filler hose in a rear crash. In 1999-2004 Grand Cherokees, Chrysler relocated the filler hose under a redesigned solid frame rail and now the filler hose pulls out of the filler neck at the top rather than the fuel tank at the bottom. The plastic fuel tank itself is vulnerable to puncture from sharp objects in the crush zone of a rear impact crash.


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Overuse of Antibiotics

Reading a recent issue of Public Citizen’s excellent Health Letter titled “Know When Antibiotics Work,” I recalled the recent tragic loss of a healthy history professor who was rushed to a fine urban hospital, with a leading infectious disease specialist by his side. No antibiotics could treat his mysterious “superbug.” He died in 36 hours.
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King's Gamble

Bob King, the new president of the United Auto Workers, whose membership is down under 400,000 from a peak of 1.5 million in 1979 is rolling out an initiative to organize foreign auto plants in the U.S., expand the union's reach overseas and forge alliances with social justice organizations.
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Open Letter to President Obama

Dear President Obama:



The sentiments expressed in this letter may have more meaning more for you now that the results of the mid-term elections are clear. You have seen what can happen when a number of your supporters lose their enthusiasm and stay home or do not actively participate as volunteers.


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Tweeting Away the Time

The start of the New Year is a good time to talk about Time. About this, we can all agree—there are only twenty four hours in a day. Zillions of companies and persons want a piece of that time from us in order to make money. But that supply of Time is not expandable. Unlike other supplies in the marketplace, this one has no give beyond twenty four hours a day.
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Letter to Governor-Elect Andrew Cuomo regarding A Stock Transfer Tax

December 30, 2010



Dear Governor-Elect Cuomo:



The conditions where many regular New Yorkers live are grim. Poverty, unemployment, home foreclosures, and small business bankruptcies keep growing.



On the other side of the tracks, the top twenty-five hedge fund managers recorded an average of $1 billion each, or over $80 million each a month in 2009. Quite a quick rebound on the backs of American taxpayers and privileged tax policies.



Low-moderate and middle-income New Yorkers already pay a higher percentage of family income in state and local taxes than do the richest one percent of New Yorkers!



The Fiscal Policy Institute wrote in April: “Essential services like fire departments and schools, recession-buffering social safety net programs like homeless prevention and senior services, and critical infrastructure systems like hospitals, roads and mass transit all face severe cutbacks.



Surprisingly, there is a simple way to eliminate the $10 billion state deficit and prevent tens of thousands of layoffs and large service cutbacks.



What most New Yorkers do not know is that for about a century there has been a tiny state stock transfer tax on purchases of securities. Last year, this tax, similar to ones imposed in 30 other countries, amounted to about $16 billion. Amazingly, since 1979, this tax has been instantly rebated by New York State back to the brokers or clearinghouses who paid it. A 100% rebate every year for the bailed out industry that caused the recession and its immense human damage. Today and everyday New Yorkers pay a 7 or 8 percent sales tax on necessities that they buy in stores. Big buyers of derivatives, for example, pay no sales tax. That is not fair.



Obviously the stock exchanges and their brokers wield big political power. Flush with arrogance, bailouts and profits, they have no shame.



Mr. Cuomo, think of the deprivation, suffering and unemployment you can prevent by simply keeping the stock transfer tax that the state collects as it did sixty years ago.



Sincerely Yours,



Ralph Nader

P.O. Box 19312

Washington, DC 20036

Pharmaceutical Industry Fraud

Pharmaceutical Industry Fraud

By Ralph Nader



The corporate defrauding of taxpayers (eg. Medicaid and Medicare) and prescription drugs with skyrocketing prices was the subject of a report by Public Citizen's Dr. Sidney Wolfe and his associates (see Citizen.Org).


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Wikimania and the First Amendment

Thomas Blanton, the esteemed director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University described Washington’s hyper-reaction to Wikileaks’ transmission of information to some major media in various countries as “Wikimania.”
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Majority of One

On Friday, December 10, 2010, Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent Socialist, of Vermont, came of age. At last. With just about the best progressive voting record, Senator Sanders has nonetheless been an underachiever in the minds of those Americans who marveled at his tenure as mayor of Burlington, Vt. before he became a Congressman and now a Senator.


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Letter to President Obama On Extending Bush Tax Cuts

Dear President Obama:



Increasingly credible press reports say that you are going to join with the Republican minority in the Congress and support the two year extension of the Bush tax cut for the Rich, along with the cuts for the $200,000 (individual) and $250,000 (couples) that the Democrats were favoring.
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