RALPH NADER: Talks Bottom Line

 

 

Bailout…Economy…Auto Industry…Environment…

Nader went for the auto industry’s jugular with a vengeance back in 1965 when he published his first book, ‘Unsafe at Any Speed’ outing car manufacturers for making unsafe vehicles.  He made headlines when executives of General Motors who hired investigators to harass him went before a televised Senate committee hearing and apologized.  With the current financial crash and round of bailouts there was plenty to ask Nader about. 

ST:  What’s your take on the auto companies wanting bailout funds?

RN:  If with a bailout the government becomes a tough insurer, share- holder and creditor in the auto industry it can further all kinds of goals for stronger fuel efficiency, emission control, safety standards to enhance sales, increase pressure on foreign auto companies, and achieve many statutory goals that auto companies have blocked for years by regulators in Washington, the Department of Transportation and EPA.  What the environmental consumer and labor groups couldn’t get through regulation, they get through reciprocity; ‘You want a bailout from Washington?..Here is how you have to perform—A, B,C, D…’  First, since the government will be contributing tax dollars, taxpayers should receive taxpayer warrants or preferred shares held by the Treasury Department for stock in the companies.  Second, since the government would be a senior creditor, it should exercise restructuring powers to remove top executives and Boards of Directors along with other functional re-alignments.  Third, since the government is essentially performing as an insurer, basic standards of loss prevention should be applied.  The three auto giants Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, whose CEOs are begging for a very rapid $34 billion in emergency government loans have few cards to play other than the domino effect on the economy, should they collapse into bankruptcy and liquidation.  Once Congress signals that, on behalf of its sullen taxpayers, going into this abyss will not happen, our national legislature will hold all the cards.  At least the auto companies are being subjected to public Congressional hearings for this latest bailout round.  In contrast, the CEOs of the financial goliaths got private roundtable treatment at the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve for greater rescue packages.   

Time Passes…But What Changes?

Nader’s name has appeared as an Independent candidate on four consecutive presidential election ballots, and the 2008 election was no exception.  Along with his V.P. running mate San Francisco attorney Matt Gonzalez, a former deputy public defender with a track record of fighting for ethics reform and defending civil rights, the two gave their progressive platform a serious go, and their reform motto was simple and to the point: ‘The more things change, the more they stay the same!’  The laundry list of gripes Nader has had for years stay the same for years with no change for us:  Single payer healthcare system; cuts on the wasteful military budget; create a sustainable economy by using solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources; make minimum wage a living wage; end corporate crime through the enforcement of law; no more Wall Street bailouts; and put  citizens, not corporations first…all crucial for our country’s well-being.  Nader’s gripe is change never happens.

Widely acknowledged as founder of the consumers’ rights movement, with regards to consumer safety and improving the environment, Nader pushes reform to the wall, and then some.  A key player in creating the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Freedom of Information Act and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, he is the Everready Energizer battery bunny incarnate bringing public awareness to subjects that he feels are contributing to the deterioration of our society and country.

ST:  How do you feel about the $700-billion plus bailout?

RN:  The economy is collapsing faster every week.  Starting with the Wall Street speculators and crooks which for no reason other than greed, speculation and too much control over a deregulatory environment launched this relentless slide in our economy.  But this is also an opportunity for the foremost corporate reform in the last 70 years.  This is Chinese ‘character for crisis’ which means opportunity.  If Washington is going to be an insureor, guaranteeor, bailoutor and a taxpayer subsidizeor…then there are all kinds of conditions that can be imposed on the auto companies, investment banks, insurance companies…whoever has a hand out in Washington for corporate welfare.  As to banks and insurance companies, the government can require them to allow inserts in all of their monthly statements and billing envelopes inviting consumers and investors to form their own group, with their own pull time advocates and those are called CUBS (Citizen Utility Board) this is an idea we got passed in Wisconsin, Illinois and San Diego years ago for household utility customers so when they get their telephone, electric and gas bills, out falls a little insert that says, Do you want to band together for your own interests against these companies?  If you do send in $5 or $10 which will hire the accountants, lawyers and organizers to pay for the work.

ST:  I think most are still scratching their heads over how fast the bailout happened.

RN:  I call the financial bailout—’Bailout by Press Release’…in that Bear Stearns, Citibank, AIG and others got to the cliff and were facing the abyss.  It was near the end of the week, they rush to Washington for Saturday and Sunday marathons with the Secretary of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Chair, and their staff, saying the sky’s falling… the sky’s falling.  So, without congressional hearings or congressional reviews, the Secretary of the Treasury and Federal Reserve Chair arrogate themselves authority to bail them out.  There are no conditions, no transparency, no agreement the public—taxpayers who are paying for this can even see.  Is it an agreement?  A memorandum of understanding between the Treasury Department, Citibank and the others?  What is it?  This is unheard of in American history; they’re performing as the legislature and executive in closed door deals.  Then Monday morning they issue the bailout press release, and no one asks taxpayers about it, as the taxpayer representatives testified before Congress.  We now see Congress tougher on auto companies to produce evidence of need compared to the blanket authority they gave the Treasury and Fed Reserve to provide sweetheart deals for CitiBank, Bear Stearns, AIG and the others.  In 1938 Franklin Delano Roosevelt sent a message to Congress on corporate power and said, “When government is controlled by private economic power it is fascism.”  This is fascism.

ST:  Let’s talk about Obama and his new appointees and Congress.

RN:  With the upcoming installation of Obama, a new, and supposedly reformist president and a Democratically dominated Congress, the current process must be reversed and White House-corporate understandings we now have need to be reconsidered and if maintained, revised.  The balance of power for the people of our country can turn, but it will take prompt new exertions by the people, citizen groups, organized investors, taxpayers and workers.  Seize the moment.

Stay Informed: www.nader.org

:::Suzanne Takowsky