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Author Archives: Jim Hightower
Stealing the vote
The GOP isn't out to 'win' elections anymore. They're just trying to make sure anyone who might vote against them can't.
Amazon is making workers tweet about how great it is to work there
They even get bathroom breaks, they say. Doesn't sound suspicious at all!
In Corporate World, when trouble pops up and things get sticky, CEOs don’t wring their hands and try to dodge the issue. Continue reading
Amazon’s worth $1 trillion, so why is it robbing taxpayers?
It’s like Bonnie and Clyde, but instead of robbing banks, Amazon has enticed city and state officials to rob their own citizens.
How much are you paying Amazon? Continue reading
The economy is supposed to be great, so why are workers miserable?
Quantity is on one thing, but quality is what really matters when it comes to jobs
It’s practically unanimous: Nine out of 10 establishment economists agree that America’s solid job growth and the low unemployment rate truly make ours “The Land of Opportunity.” Continue reading
Our economy is more concentrated than ever
Just four tech superpowers raked in half of this year’s stock price gains by the 500 largest corporations.
America’s political history has been written in the fierce narrative of war. Not our country’s many military clashes with foreign nations, but our own unending war for democracy in the United States. Continue reading
The United States of Monopoly Rule
Five banks control half of all U.S. financial assets, and six conglomerates control 90 percent of our media.
Monopolies aren’t merely un-American—they’re virulently anti-American. They suppress our fundamental values of fairness and opportunity for all. Continue reading
Kafka on the border
The administration has trapped immigrant families in a bureaucratic nightmare—and brought media hacks rushing to defend the indefensible.
Insanity reigns. The inmates are now officially in charge of the national asylum. Continue reading
Toddlers on trial
Kids as young as 1-year-old are being forced to stand trial alone in Trump's immigration courts, often without even attorneys.
We Americans believe everyone has a right to have their day in court. Right? Continue reading
The New York Times is still getting the Bernie movement wrong
America's paper of record said a Bernie Sanders-inspired grassroots group was "failing"—just one day before its candidates rocked the Democratic establishment.
Before major news organizations pronounce someone dead, they ought to check the person’s pulse. Continue reading
A wall won’t fix immigration
The wailing in our country about the “invasion of immigrants” has been long and loud. As one complainant put it, “Few of their children in the country learn English . . . The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages . . . Unless the stream of the importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious.” Continue reading
Big Oil’s man in foreign policy
The Koch brothers are really getting their money's worth from Trump's secretary of state.
The Koch brothers’ extremist political agenda of empowering multinational corporations to reign as sovereigns has always been inextricably entwined with the profiteering agenda of their wholly-owned, $100-billion-a-year industrial conglomerate. Continue reading
Is Trump giving Amazon the Postal Service?
Trump wanted to use the Postal Service to hit back at Amazon, but he may end up doing the opposite.
The U.S. postal system has 30,000 outlets serving every part of America. It employs 630,000 people in good middle-class jobs. And it proudly delivers letters and packages clear across the country for a pittance. Continue reading
A quiet conspiracy of billionaires
For decades, the Koch brothers have led a secret coup for the billionaire class.
The Koch brothers are oil magnates and billionaire GOP funders. Continue reading
Betsy DeVos needs an education on ethics
The student loan sharks who prey on veterans and single moms have a friend in Trump's education secretary.
Question: What do you get when you combine ignorance, imperiousness, and incompetence? Continue reading
A shiny new tool to pad profits: Stealing
From making workers deliver packages off-hours to pocketing their tips, corporate greed is turning theft into business as usual.
Workplace exploitation is at least as old as the industrial revolution. But rather than using whips to make the assembly lines move ever faster, today’s corporate exploiters use technology, devious work schedules, and lobbyists to extract more work from employees—for less pay. Continue reading
What’s the point of satire anymore?
How can anyone satirize a presidency that gleefully flaunts its own awfulness every day?
Some might call the Trump administration a murderous mob. Specifically, they’ve been serial killers of the English language. Continue reading
Forget the Dow Jones. How’s Doug Jones?
The stock market is owned by the rich. It tells you little about how ordinary Americans are doing.
Language matters. For example, the words that corporate and government officials use to report on the health of America’s economy can either make clear to us commoners what’s going on—or hide and even lie about the reality we face. Continue reading
Corporations are spending their tax cut—on themselves
Instead of creating jobs, big businesses are using their tax cut bonanza to hike stock value and CEO pay.
Remember last year when Donald Trump and his congressional Trumpeteers bragged that their “yuge” tax cut for corporations would spark a “yuge” corporate spending spree to create new jobs and higher wages? Continue reading
A food stamp indignity worthy of Dickens
Behind the White House's demeaning "food box" idea is a plan to eliminate food aid for poor people completely.
Even Charles Dickens, England’s masterful satirist of the Victorian upper class, couldn’t have imagined elite rulers using a box of food as a gratuitous way to slap poor people. Continue reading
Americans hate the tax bill because it wasn’t written for them
In today’s rigged political system, the special interests of a tiny minority trump the will of the great majority.
It’s odd that Washington Republicans are so loudly crowing about their passage of the Trump-McConnell-Ryan tax law. Odd because the people outside of Washington hate that law. Continue reading
No, big corporations shouldn’t get tax breaks to create jobs
The breaks seldom pay for themselves—and put employees of local businesses out of work.
Governors and mayors insist that giving our tax dollars to corporations to lure them to move to our cities is good public policy. The corporations create jobs, those workers pay taxes, and—voila!—the giveaway pays for itself! Continue reading
A rigged game only Amazon will win
The bidding war to host the retail giant's second headquarters pits taxpayers across America against each other.
In September, the giant retail monopolist Amazon announced its intention to build a second corporate headquarters in Someplace, North America. Continue reading
This CEO wants a key to your house
Jeff Bezos expects you to pay for the privilege of letting Amazon employees enter your home when you're not there.
Would you give your house key to a complete stranger, letting that person (whose name you don’t even know) walk right into your home when you’re not there? Continue reading
The rise and fall of America’s middle class
The middle class was built by movements—and can be rebuilt by movements.
Ever since 1776, the “common yeoman”—America’s middle class—has been hailed as the virtuous heart and backbone of our nation. Continue reading
America’s farmworkers face poverty, neglect, and now deportation
Up to 70 percent of the people who put food on America's tables may be undocumented.
Every decade or so, America’s mass media are surprised to discover that migrant farmworkers are being miserably paid and despicably treated by the industry that profits from their labor. Continue reading
If you make under $75,000, you lose
Behind closed doors, Republicans admit that their tax plan is all for their rich donors.
Sam Rayburn, a legendary speaker of the U.S. House in the 1940s and ’50s, offered this piece of ethical advice for lawmakers who were conflicted over whether to vote for the people or the lobbyists: “Every now and then,” he said, “a politician ought to do something just because it’s right.” Continue reading
A mass murderer’s love song to Trump
When a guy who's compared himself to Hitler sings love ballads to the U.S. president, we've got a problem.
“We’ve had a great relationship,” exulted a giddy Donald Trump, following his two-day schmoozefest in Manila with the thuggish Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte. Continue reading
Leading Democrats are way behind the public on health care
60 percent of Americans support single payer health care. So why is the party leadership dragging its feet?
Good news, people—at last, congressional Democrats have gotten a clue, grown some spine, and are beginning to act like . . . well, like progressives. Continue reading
Robots aren’t taking our jobs, corporations are
They're creating a robot economy with inexpensive machines that don't demand wages or health care.
There’s a robot in your future. Not one of those cute little labor-saving automatons—like a “Roomba” vacuum cleaner. Continue reading
What happened to Trump’s pledge to close this billionaire loophole?
The president's pledge to roll back a hedge fund loophole has mysteriously vanished from his tax plan.
These are hard times for America’s gold miners. They’re scrambling to get ahead, but seeing their pay dropping. Continue reading
Trump wants $1.6 billion for the border wall that spans just 74 miles
All this for a boondoggle project most Americans continue to oppose.
How much of your money does Donald Trump want to pour into his xenophobic fantasy of erecting an impenetrable wall on our Mexican border? Continue reading
Cowboys for climate action
A new group is naming and shaming the people bankrolling climate change denial.
Posted on September 28, 2018 by Jim Hightower
Shame is that queasy feeling you get when you realize you’ve done something improper, ridiculous, or just flat-out contemptible. But it’s socially invaluable, for feeling ashamed is a built-in jerk alarm, keeping most of us from doing the same embarrassing thing again. Continue reading →