Consumer Rights Are Civil Rights

Ralph welcomes Marta Tellado, president and CEO of Consumer Reports and author of “Buyer Aware: Harnessing Our Consumer Power for a Safe, Fair, and Transparent Marketplace.” She and Ralph tackle many consumer related issues including how consumer rights are also civil rights. And previous guest Professor Michael Hudson rejoins us to forcefully rebut a listener comment about his view of the Federal Reserve, quantitative easing, and who runs the US Treasury. Plus, Ralph has some choice words about how we should be thinking about immigration.

Marta Tellado is president and CEO of Consumer Reports, an independent nonprofit that works side-by-side with consumers to create a fair and just marketplace. She is the author of Buyer Aware: Harnessing Our Consumer Power for a Safe, Fair, and Transparent Marketplace.

I believe that democratic freedoms can coexist and thrive with economic equity. And I wrote the book in part to tell a larger story about how our democracy can only thrive if we really have a marketplace that has opportunity that is fair and just across all populations. And so, it really is a way of engaging a broader audience in this idea that a fair marketplace is absolutely essential to a fair democracy. Economic freedom is a civil right.

Marta Tellado, author of Buyer Aware: Harnessing Our Consumer Power for a Safe, Fair, and Transparent Marketplace

With each individual [consumer] action, we really talk about some of the big changes we need to see in the marketplace. Particularly now, with the domination, lack of competition, and the concentration of the power that we have. How do we, as a collective force, drive a marketplace that is safer by design? That is private by design? That doesn't put all the burden on consumers?

Marta Tellado, author of Buyer Aware: Harnessing Our Consumer Power for a Safe, Fair, and Transparent Marketplace

[On harnessing consumer spending] All this money that Apple and Amazon make— all the money they use to lobby, all the money they use to propagandize— it all starts with consumer dollars that are given to them in return for services.

Ralph Nader

Michael Hudson is President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends, a Wall Street Financial Analyst, and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He is the author of Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire,  …and forgive them their debts – Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption from Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year, and Finance Capitalism and its Discontents.

When you realize that the purpose of quantitative easing was to raise real estate and stock market prices, why would they do it, if not to rescue the banks? It didn’t make the economy healthier. It raised the cost of living. It added to the debt deflation… So, by re-inflating the financial markets, this created a whole new business for banks— lending credit.

Michael Hudson

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