Public Gouge
McMillin, Miles
Public Gouge Overcharge, by Senator Lee Metcalf and Vic Reinemer. David McKay. 254 pp. $5.95. Reviewed by Miles McMillin In the days when the public power A movement in this country was a...
...This is the documented story of the consumer gouging that goes on all over this country...
...The press ignored it though it was the most significant story of our time on the gouging the public is taking from the power trust...
...But those were days when local people looked more to their own resources instead of trotting off to Washington with their tin cups...
...It reaches into schools and churches...
...An elaborate system of brainwashing is described, a system sustained by a gigantic and unreported utility slush fund...
...Reviewed by Miles McMillin In the days when the public power A movement in this country was a militant and provocative force this book would have created a major stir politically and perhaps inspired some book-burning expeditions by Samuel InsulPs legions...
...Senator Lee Metcalf and his administrative assistant, Vic Reinemer, make us realize how truly bountiful the local utilities can be to local governments if owned by the public...
...But its most numbing effect is on the press...
...Overcharge should be required reading for every mayor before he goes to Washington for finances to see him through the property tax crisis common to all municipalities of any size...
...It was the first time the FPC had ever made public a comprehensive study of rates of return...
...Indeed, as any informed look at Moody's will tell you, and as this book makes clear, the wailing monopoly utilities do better on their returns than the free enterprisers...
...A placid public, comfortable in its delusion that the regulatory agencies are holding profits to the mythical six per cent, never learns that it often pays twice to three times that rate...
...How it is all made possible is laid out in the most dismaying chapter in the book: "The Press—Freedom from Information...
...The part played by a slothful and venal press in the gouging of the public is illustrative of the comprehensive coverage achieved in this excellent book...
...ft Financial pages are used by manipulators to mislead investors...
...Senator Metcalf and Reinemer set forth the story of systematic news suppression, including the 1965 release of the Federal Power Commission showing how regulation of rates has broken down and showing that utilities are receiving far more income than legally provided for...
...Public Gouge Overcharge, by Senator Lee Metcalf and Vic Reinemer...
...Tf Financial press and financial public relations personnel have a cozy relationship which leaves the trusting reader out in the cold...
...The authors note, too, the Securities and Exchange Commission study showing that: % Financial reporters and editors in many cases hold stock in companies about which they write and from whom they accept gifts and junkets...
Vol. 31 • August 1967 • No. 8
