Lewis F. Powell Jr. Quotes
Ralph Nader is the single most effective antagonist of American business.
While Powell intended the statement as an insult, Nader and most of the consumer movement considered it a profound compliment. The result was that the statement was quoted frequently.
Lewis F. Powell Jr., 1907-1998, U. S. Supreme Court Justice, Memo to Eugene Sydnor Jr., the Director of the US Chamber of Commerce, August 23, 1971
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The two politicians were amazed as they learned more and more about some of industrial leaders of the country. This is the language they used in private communications.
In 1961 the President intervened in a labor dispute in the steel industry with the "understanding" that the steel companies would not raise their prices after the settlement. As soon as there was a settlement prices were raised:. The President "persuaded" the steel executives to rescind the increases.
For many general government regulations—labor, environment, non discrimination—the small business has a proportionately heavier burden of compliance. So large businesses have always been able to count on small business to lobby against regulation and for deregulation. However, when it comes to financial regulation such as the Dodd-Frank regulations essentially apply to large businesses. As a matter of fact, small businesses were on many ways the most frequent victims of the large banks and investment bank excesses in the Meltdown of 2008. Before most of the regulations could even take effect, the financial industry was already trying to get small business to lobby to roll back the protective regulations preventing future meltdowns and bank failure resulting from loose regulation and greedy irresponsible financial industry behavior. The President campaigned to convince the small business not to support the finance industry over their usual “knee jerk” reaction to any regulation.
She had done a monumental exposé of the Standard Oil Company illegal and immoral activities. The public was so aroused that many reforms were instituted and the Standard Oil Company Trust was broken up into many smaller companies. Tarbell was then, in the words of S. S. McClure, “the most famous woman in America.”
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910. The nature of telephone technology made it easy for companies to obtain monopolies for different areas of the country. When there is a monopoly, there is a huge tendency for the controlling company to charge very high prices and have poor customer service as the usual competition required for quality performance under capitalism is nonexistant. So in 1890, there was the same resentment of the telephone companies, that existed over a century later when there was still a monopoly. Regulation helped somewhat, but the capabilities of the monopolist began to include lobbying and campaign contributions so that typically, in the 21st century, the local telephone companies had much control over the State Commissions that were supposed to regulate them. Long distance service, whose monopoly was broken up by the Federal Courts became a wonderful service for customers and the prices were a tiny fraction of what they had been under their old monopoly.
Lewis Franklin Powell Jr. was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1971 to 1987. Powell compiled a generally conservative and business-aligned record on the Court.
