David Cay Johnston: The Fine Print: How Big Companies Use Plain English to Rob You Blind

Tags: David Cay Johnston, The Fine Print, telephone companies, oil and gas pipelines, corporate taxes

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Good morning, welcome to Radioactivity. Coming up we’ll talk with Pulitzer Prize winning reporter David Cay Johnston about his new book THE FINE PRINT: HOW BIG COMPANIES USE PLAIN ENGLISH TO ROB YOU BLIND (Portfolio/Penguin).

But first- three listener comments about yesterday's program. Yesterday we talked briefly about the lockout of the NFL referees and played a call from the Clay County Republican Party telling a senior citizen that President Obama is a Muslim.

TAPE By the way- an official with the Clay County GOP who asked not to be recorded tells WMNF that the person the the recording might have "gone off script." And they were speaking for themselves and not the Party.

In this half hour our guest is

David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize winner and the bestselling author of Per­fectly Legal and Free Lunch, is famous for exposing how the public is ripped off by some of biggest institutions- when it comes to paying their fair share of taxes. In his new Now he turns his attention to the ways huge corporations hide extra fees in just about every contract, in his new book The Fine Print: How Big Companies Use “Plain English” and Other Tricks to Rob You Blind. He joins us now.