Browse Topics
Corporations
Legally Piggly
The main objective of the Wall Street lawyers was for the corporations to get out from under the tax control of the American government. In 1933 the American people had saved the corporations by subsidizing them; then, twenty years later, the Wall Street lawyers moved them out of America, getting the American people to pay for the move.
December 1982At The End Of The Fiscal Year
Ten months prior to being eligible for his company’s pension and benefit plan, after almost twenty years, Ben Ross was fired.
June 1982Favorite Magazines
Muckraking, infamous mergers, the Jeffersonian ideal
September 1980Tarnished Gold
Our Seed Stock Is In Jeopardy, But Do The Seed Companies Care?
Corn is the most valuable United States crop. When a few companies, or a few varieties, dominate its seed market, conditions are ripe for economic and ecological disaster.
July 1978Life At The Top Of The Dial
The WDBS Story
WDBS is an institution, as much a part of local culture as Somethyme Restaurant, Apple Chill Fair, Breadmen’s, Carrboro and canoeing the Haw River. It’s one of the things that makes this area a nice place to live. Without it, life would be different.
February 1978The Chain Gang
Consumers foot the bill for the supermarket monopolies. And what a bill! A 1975 government report found that 41% of the increase in food margins in a nine-year period was the result of rising advertising and promotional expenses — money spent not to better our diet but to manipulate us as shoppers.
December 1977Not Quite Our Sort
“Anything,” I say. “Anything but that.” They were trying to make me eat chicken. As an intelligence agent I had been through the wringer many times — torture, torture, forever torture. But I hate chicken. I detest chicken. I would tell them anything if I had to eat chicken.
November 1977A Banana By Any Other Name
The Case Against Brand-Name Vegetables
Four years after the Chiquita campaign had been launched, United had captured nearly a third of the country’s market at prices 10 to 15% higher than other bananas. Through brand name promotion, United had convinced consumers to pay more for Chiquitas than other bananas and to like doing it.
July 1977Right Livelihood
The Briarpatch
Are you a Briar? Well, you might be if you try to live simply, share resources and skills with others, and practice right livelihood rather than grasp for fame and riches.
March 1977Publishing, Hopefully Not Perishing
The Small Press Movement
I can’t remember the first time I heard someone say that the conglomerates (giant U.S. corporations like Xerox) were buying out the big New York publishing houses, the ones that 20 or so years ago were a fairly reliable place to publish a first novel, a well-written book, something that might someday be known as a great book, as “literature.”
February 1977
