Jim Hightower: Counting the 'populist' Trump's lies to his sucker followers

Via OtherWords.org

Have you noticed that Donald Trump constantly prefaces his outlandish lies with such phrases as: “To be honest with you,” “To tell the truth,” and “Believe me”?

Why? Because like a snake-oil salesman, he constantly needs to convince himself that he’s speaking the truth in order to perform his next lie convincingly. The show must go on… and on.

In fact, he already ranks as the perhaps lyingest president in U.S. history. And that includes Nixon! The Washington Post‘s fact checker counted over 2,000 lies in Trump’s first year alone.

Trump’s biggest whopper is that he’s an honest-to-God “populist,” standing up for America’s hard-hit middle class against Wall Street, corporate lobbyists and moneyed elites.

This prevarication has duped many working stiffs into thinking he’s their champion. The huckster doubled down on this lie in his inaugural address last year, pompously declaring, “The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.”

That’s why a new, straight-talking pamphlet by the watchdog group Public Citizen is so important. It exposes the “people’s champion” as a rank fraud who’s worked from day one to further enrich and empower the corporate elites he had denounced as a candidate.

Public Citizen’s report documents with concise, easy-to-grasp specifics on how Trump-the-faux-populist has systematically sold out the working families whose votes he cynically swiped, handing our government to a kakistocracy of corporate plutocrats.

The Public Citizen exposé is titled “Forgetting the Forgotten: 101 Ways Donald Trump Has Betrayed the Middle Class,” and it drives the stake of truth through the heart of his populist pretensions. It’s available at CorporatePresidency.org/forgotten.)

 Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer and public speaker. He’s also the editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown, and a member of the Public Citizen board. 

Jim Hightower: Bribing big firms to lure them to your area is a fool's game

"Eve Tempted by the Serpent,.'' by William Blake.

Via OtherWords.org

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!

Does it really work that way? Unfortunately, no.

Good Jobs First tracked the 386 incentive deals since 1976 that gave at least $50 million to a corporation, then tallied the number of jobs created. The average cost per job was $658,427 — each! That’s far more than cities and states can recover through any kinds of taxes those jobholders would pay in their lifetimes.

The rosy job-creation claims by incentive dealmakers also tend to be bogus, because they don’t subtract the number of jobs lost as a result of these deals.

Amazon, for example, has leaned on officials in every major metro area to subsidize its creation of a nationwide network of warehouses, data centers and other facilities.

In a 2016 report titled “Amazon’s Stranglehold,” the Institute for Local Self-Reliance found that more than half of Amazon’s facilities had been built with government subsidies. And Good Jobs First found that since 2005, Amazon has received more than $1 billion from taxpayers to build their private business.

Each handout was made in the name of local workers — and, yes, Amazon does employ thousands. But the subsidies enable the retail giant to undercut local, unsubsidized competitors, driving them out of business and causing devastating job losses that greatly outnumber jobs gained.

The Institute reports that at the end of 2015, Amazon employed 146,000 people in its US operations. But the taxpayer-supported giant had meanwhile killed some 295,000 U.S. retail jobs.

Check out the report for yourself at ilsr.org/amazon-stranglehold.

Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s also the editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. 

Jim Hightower: Jeff Bezos wants the key to your house

Amazon is watching you.

Via OtherWords.org

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?

One stranger who’s brazenly asking you and millions of other people to do just that is Jeff Bezos.

He’s the head honcho of Amazon, the e-commerce behemoth whose vast supercomputer network routinely compiles and stores dossiers on every one of his customers. He’s obsessed with having the most data on the most people — it’s a little creepy.

Now, adding to the creep factor, Bezos literally wants Amazon to get inside your home. And, ironically, he’s using “security” as his rationale.

Rather than simply delivering the products you order from Amazon to your doorstep, the corporation wants a key to unlock your door, allowing its delivery crews to go inside and do you the favor of placing the packages securely in your abode.

What could possibly go wrong with that?

Other than you being robbed, of course, either by rogue Amazon employees or by hackers who will certainly gain access to the corporation’s computerized key codes. Or maybe “Crusher,” your pitbull, mauls the Amazon intruder and you get sued.

Need I mention that Bezos expects you to pay for the privilege of having his employees enter your home? First, his dicey, open-sesame program, which he calls “Amazon Key,” is available only to customers who shell out $99 a year to be “Amazon Prime” members.

Second, you must buy a special Internet-unlocking gizmo and a particular camera to join his corporate key club. And guess where you must go to buy this entry technology? Yes, Amazon — where prices for the gizmo and camera setup start at $250.

This is Jim Hightower saying… What a deal! For Amazon, that is.

Bezos’s  real goal — indeed, his only goal, always — isn’t so much to get inside your home. It’s to get inside your wallet.

Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s also the editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown.

Jim Hightower: A mass murderer's love song to Trump

Via OthertWords.org

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.

Duterte, who calls himself a “toughie,” brags that he’s personally killed many people and likes to compare himself to Hitler. He’s been on a murderous rampage since his election last year.

In the name of eliminating the drug trade, Duterte has unleashed a massive military assault across the country, not merely targeting dealers, but also anyone alleged to even use drugs. His onslaught is a human rights atrocity, with untold thousands being executed in what are antiseptically termed “extra judicial killings” — that is, murders.

Yet the present president of the United States says Duterte is his new buddy. Trump stressed in their official discussions that the Philippine president can count on him and the U.S. (which includes you and me) to be a friend. And, as a friend, Trump didn’t bother his authoritarian buddy with any unpleasant talk about those rampant human rights abuses.

Instead, the Duterte-Trump get-together was one of mutual praise and even affection. Indeed, Trump was delighted when Duterte impulsively grabbed the microphone at a gala state dinner and serenaded Trump with a love ballad, crooning: “You are the love I’ve been waiting for.”

In fact, Duterte had earlier demonstrated that love when he named Jose Antonio to be his trade representative to our country. Antonio, a Philippine real estate mogul, happens to be a partner with our president in the luxurious new Trump Tower, now under construction in Manila. Cozy, huh?

Hugging up Duterte might be good business for Trump, but it’s a sorry deal for our national interest — and it’s an insult to our people’s support of human rights.

Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s also the editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. 

Jim Hightower: President Trump and other people's money

Via OtherWords.org

If you’ve been to any of the cities graced with a Trump hotel, casino, or resort, you know that The Donald splashes his name in giant, gaudy letters across every structure he owns — preferably in gold or at least golden paint

Now he’s taken ownership of a massive new structure, but he might not want his name on this one. It’s Trump’s towering re-do of America’s tax law. And it’s truly golden — for the super-rich, that is.

The plan reveals in hard numbers whom this presidency really serves: Not just the 1-percent, but the one-tenth of 1-percenters who are multimillionaires. People like Trump himself.

First and foremost, the Trump tax plan slashes the payments that giant corporations make to support our nation. He claims that this will let corporate elites raise the wages of workers and create jobs, winking at the fact that, of course, the elites will pocket every dime of his tax giveaways.

And — shhhh — he doesn’t mention a little secret gotcha: A third of his corporate benefits go to foreign owners of American corporations.

Meanwhile, Trump’s luxurious new tax structure eliminates many benefits for middle class families, such as tax deductions for medical expenses, college tuition, and interest paid on student loans.

He wants modest-income families to pay more, so he can eliminate current taxes on his own uber-rich family — including killing the alternative income tax paid by the rich, and the estate tax, which applies only to the immense fortunes of a handful of America’s richest families.

Did I mention that the gilded tax structure proposed by this self-described business genius would hang an additional $1.5 trillion in debt around our children’s necks?

No surprise, for Trump’s grandiose luxury projects were often built with other people’s money. Trump would cash in before he slipped away, leaving others to grapple with the bankruptcy.

Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s also the editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown.

Jim Hightower: Push back against arrogant Amazon

"Battle of the Amazons,'' by Peter Paul Rubens.

Via OtherWords.org

Isn’t it funny that right-wing politicians across America piously rant against giving a few bucks worth of jobless benefits to the needy — then turn around and shove billions of our tax dollars into corporate welfare for the greedy?

You’re right. It’s not funny. But here we go again.

We’re witnessing the most disgusting spectacle yet of the politico-corporate cabal extracting money from the people’s wallets to  further enrich themselves.

Amazon.com, the $136-billion-a-year Internet colossus, has initiated a sleazy, self-serving public bidding war over where it will locate its new corporate headquarters. The city and state that offer the most bribe money to this private enterprise will be “the winner.” {Boston and Providence are among the bidders.}

Uber-rich Amazon doesn’t need — and certainly doesn’t deserve — any public handout. But officials in 238 cities have prostrated themselves in front of this Amazonian welfare queen in embarrassing bids to win her nod.

Amazon’s arrogant executives even sent out a list of basic benefits they expect every applicant to deliver, including a “business-friendly environment and tax structure,” free land, a subsidy to reduce its operational costs, tax breaks, relocation grants for executives and workforce, reduced utility bills, and — oh yeah, also give us first-rate schools and an educated labor pool.

As one analyst of Amazon’s bribery scheme noted, “These incentives aren’t free. There’s no fairy godmother paying for them.”

The typical result of corporate giveaways is that they cost the public more than we get back. By demanding such corporate spoils, Amazon brands itself a common thief, not only taking our money, but also stealing our trust in the fairness of the system and widening inequality in our society.

To help stop this corruption, go to GoodJobsFirst.org.

Jim Hightower is a radio commentator,  writer and public speaker. He’s also the editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. 

Jim Hightower; As free as you can afford to be

Via OtherWords.org

I think of freedom in positive, aspirational terms — as in FDR’s “Four freedoms,” or in the uplifting songs of freedom sung by oppressed people everywhere.

But right-wing ideologues have fabricated a negative notion of “freedoms” derived from their twisted concept of individual choice. You’re “free” to be poor, politically powerless, or ill and uncared for, they say — it’s all a matter of decisions you freely make, and our government has no business interfering with your free will.

This is what passes as a philosophical framework guiding today’s Republican congressional leaders.

For example, they say their plan to eliminate health coverage for millions of Americans and cut such essential benefits as maternity care for millions more is just a matter of good ol’ free-market consumerism.

As explained by Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Tea Party Republican: “Americans have choices. And so maybe, rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and they want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care.”

Lest you think that Chaffetz must simply be an oddball jerk, here’s a similar deep insight from the top House Republican, Speaker Paul Ryan: “Freedom is the ability to buy what you want to fit what you need.”

Yes, apparently, you’re as free as you can afford to be. As Vice President Mike Pence recently barked at us, Trumpcare’s you’re-on-your-own philosophy is all about “bringing freedom and individual responsibility back to American health care.”

The GOP’s austere view is that getting treatment for your spouse’s cancer should be like buying a new pair of shoes — a free-market decision by customers who choose their own price point, from Neiman Marcus to Goodwill. And if you go barefoot, well, that’s your choice.

Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s also the editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. 

Jim Hightower: Donald Trump's relentless Twitter attacks on --- our allies

Via OtherWords.org

Donald Trump missed his opportunity to become a General Patton-style military commander and glorious war hero back in the Vietnam era. He surely would’ve been the greatest in history, to hear him tell it.

But, alas, he says some unspecified foot problem (or something or other) kept him from the privilege of actually getting to go fight in that war. Bad luck, I’m sure. But now that The Donald is the commander-in-chief for real, his inner warrior has been given a second chance to bloom, and this time he’s fully enlisted.

In recent weeks, President Trump has (1) escalated a running war of words against Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, (2) bombed the European leaders of NATO with explosive charges that they’re unworthy of his support, (3) launched a fierce new barrage of tough rhetoric in his extralegal offensive to ban all travel to the U.S. by anyone from six Muslim nations, and (4) opened an entirely new battlefront by attacking the mayor of London with one of his Twitter missiles.

In last year’s presidential campaign, Trump declared with typical modesty that “No one is bigger or better at the military than I am.”

Well, I’m certainly no expert on war, but if a president is going to pick a mess of foreign fights, wouldn’t it be better, strategically speaking, to pick on actual enemies, rather than on America’s allies? After all, there might come a time when we need friends to stand with us.

In a twist of historic irony, it looks like Boss Trump and his military team might need those European allies sooner than they figured. His national security chief and the Pentagon are pushing a new strategy for America’s long, horribly messy war in Afghanistan — but it depends on our NATO allies sending some of their troops into the fight.

Oops, how awkward for the impetuous tweeter-in-chief.

 Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s also the editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. 

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Jim Hightower: Trump/Ryan Care would be bonanza for insurance company CEOs

It appears that House Speaker Paul Ryan’s 123-page legislative plan for Trumpcare, the GOP’s so-called “replacement” for Obamacare, is dead — for now, anyway.

Republicans tried to rush it through, but not before the Congressional Budget Office discovered it was actually a displacement plan.

That is, if it had passed, 24 million Americans who are now insured would have lost their insurance. Moreover, the premiums paid by senior citizens would have been jacked up, and the benefits for practically everyone would have been cut.

But Ryan did make sure that one group with special needs would have benefited from his legislative wizardry: the CEOs of giant insurance corporations.

Understandably, none of the GOP lawmakers who’ve been loudly crowing about killing Obamacare mentioned a little, six-line provision hidden on page 67, discretely titled “Remuneration from Certain Insurers.” In plain English, this gob of gobbledygook offers a tax subsidy that encourages insurance conglomerates to increase the pay of their top executives.

Current tax law says insurers can pay as much as they want to top executives, but they can only deduct $500,000 per executive from their corporate taxes. Under Ryan’s rip-off, however, we taxpayers would have at least doubled — and possibly quadrupled — the unconscionable salary subsidies we dole out to these enormously profitable corporations.

The White House and GOP Congress proclaimed that their replacement of Obamacare was “the will of the people.” Really? How many Americans think that jacking up the pay of super-rich insurance chiefs is a proper use of our tax dollars?

And I’d say a big majority of the people would think it immoral to steal lifesaving healthcare benefits from working-class and poor families just to subsidize corporate elites who are already overpaid.

If Republicans actually thought their executive pay subsidy was the will of the people, why did they try so hard to keep it a secret

Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer and public speaker. He’s also the editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. 

Jim Hightower: Hypocrite House speaker should spare us his lectures on morality of entitlements

Via OtherWords.org

For nearly half a century now, America’s middle-class working families have been pummeled by corporate greedmeisters and their political henchmen.

Indeed, during the recession, the typical median-income family has lost 40 percent of their wealth. Haven’t they been punished enough?

No, says U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Along with other top Republican leaders of Congress, he intends to slash the Social Security money that middle-class and low-income workers depend on for their retirement, and he ultimately aims to kill it altogether.

Dependence on such public “entitlements,” he preaches, weakens our nation’s morality.

Entitlements? Social Security isn’t a welfare program — regular working people pay a 12-percent tax on every dime of their wages into this public pension fund year after year. They earn their retirement.

Morality? Social Security embodies America’s core moral value of fairness and our society’s commitment to the common good. And it works: Before it was enacted, half of all Americans spent their “golden years” in poverty.

Social Security has saved the great majority of us from old-age penury. Where is the morality in stealing away this earned retirement — and the modicum of dignity that comes with it — from millions?

Besides, a sermon on the morality of entitlements should never come from a congress critter’s mouth.

Ryan himself wallows in a mud pit of congressional entitlements that working stiffs couldn’t imagine getting: A $223,500 annual paycheck, a free limousine and chauffeur, a maximum-coverage health plan, a tax-paid PR agent, a lavish expense account, free travel — and, of course, a platinum-level congressional retirement program funded by the very taxpayers whose Social Security he’s out to kill.

Yet Ryan wonders why Congress’ public approval rating is plummeting toward single digits.

Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s also the editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. 

Jim Hightower: These are great days for reading '1984'

Via OtherWords.org

Tromp-tromp-tromp — troops are marching to battles. Boom-boom-boom — bombs are blowing up communities. Whoooosh — poisonous gas is being released.

Forget Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan — this is Trump’s War.

Our bellicose commander in chief is at war in the homeland, deploying his troops to attack everything from our public schools to the EPA, dropping executive order bombs on Muslim communities and the Mexican border.

He’s spewing poisonous tweets of bigotry and right-wing bile at the media, scientists, inner cities, “illegal voters,” Meryl Streep, diplomats, Democrats, and people who use real facts.

Basically, Trump is at war with everyone who doesn’t agree with him — in short, with the majority of Americans. And you thought that Nixon had a long enemies list!

Yet Trump’s most destructive assault so far hasn’t targeted any one group, but instead an essential and existential concept: truth. Bluntly put, he believes that truth is whatever he says it is, and that he can change it tomorrow.

Years ago, in a futuristic novel, the author wrote about the rise of a tyrannical regime that ruled by indoctrinating the masses to accept the perverse notion of capricious truth. It was George Orwell’s 1984, which depicted a dystopia he named Oceania.

There, the public had been inculcated to believe that reality is not “something objective, external, existing in its own right.” Rather, “whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth.”

Now, in 2017, we live in Trumplandia — with a delusional leader of a plutocratic party trying to redefine reality with “alternative facts,” fake news, and a blitzkrieg of Orwellian “Newspeak.”

But resistance to Trumpism is already surging. Not least, Orwell’s 70-year-old book has become a bestseller again — thanks to Trump resisters seeking… you know, the truth.

Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s also the editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. 

Jim Hightower: Perry to run Energy Dept. for crony capitalism

Via OtherWords.org

Rick Perry has taken quite a tumble since being governor of Texas. He was a twice-failed GOP presidential wannabe and then ended up being a rejected contestant on Dancing with the Stars, the television show for has-been celebrities.

But now, having kissed the ring of Donald Trump, Perry is being lifted from the lowly role of twinkle-toed TV hoofer to — get this — taking charge of our government’s nuclear arsenal.

That’s a position that usually requires some scientific knowledge and experience. But as we’re learning from Trump’s other Cabinet picks, the key qualification that Trump wants his public servants to have is a commitment to serve the private interests of corporate power.

That’s why Perry — a devoted practitioner of crony capitalism and a champion of oligarchy — has been rewarded with this position.

As governor, Perry went to extraordinary lengths to let the fossil-fuel giant Energy Transfer Partners run a pipeline through the ecologically fragile, natural wonders of Texas’s pristine Big Bend region. In fact, he rammed it right down the throats of local people, who were almost unanimously opposed.

Perry then accepted a $6 million campaign donation — i.e., a payoff — from the company’s corporate boss, who later made Perry a paid member of the corporation’s board of directors.

Perry also privatized a state-run, low-level nuclear-waste facility, turning it over to Waste Control Specialists, a firm owned by a major campaign contributor. Then he let the corporation double the amount of waste dumped there, while reducing its legal liability for damages.

Finally, after taking even more cash from the owner, Perry pushed to let him put high-level nuclear waste in the dump.

Rick Perry has zero expertise or experience for the job of energy secretary, but he has plenty at stiffing the American people and our environment.

Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, public speaker, editor of the populist newsletter The Hightower Lowdown and a member of the Public Citizen board. 

Jim Hightower: Our fraudulent, pathological liar president-elect still addicted to Twitter

Two previous pathological  liars/egomaniacs in their glory days.

Via OtherWords. org

All hail Augusts Trumpus — the American Putin, whom none can criticize! All hail the All Knowing One, who reveals “realities” that aren’t there and finds “facts” that mere mortals can’t detect.

Once again, the Amazing Donald has demonstrated his phantasmagoric power of perception, having found a new outcome in November’s election that others haven’t seen. Trump has been greatly perturbed by the official results, which showed that while he won the Electoral College majority, he wasn’t the people’s choice.

Instead, according to the latest tally, Hillary Clinton won the popular balloting by a margin of more than 2.7 million votes and counting.

Growing increasingly furious at this affront to his supernatural sense of self, the master of factual flexibility went on Twitter with an amazing revelation: “I won the popular vote,” decreed our incoming tweeter-in-chief.

How did he turn a 2.7 million vote loss into a glorious victory? “I won,” he tweeted, “if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”

Wow again! Millions?

You’d think that such a massive conspiracy, with millions of illegal voters in line at thousands of precincts, would’ve been noticed by election officials, GOP poll watchers, and the media. How did Trump find this truly incredible “fact”?

It seems he channeled it from the mysterious Twittersphere — and specifically from a Texas conspiracy hound who had earlier posted a tweet declaring: “We have verified more than 3 million votes cast by non-citizens.”

But this guy turns out to be part of a right-wing fringe group chasing non-existent voter frauds. Exactly none of those 3 million “illegal” votes have been verified. Stunned that Trump would cite his tweet as proof, he asked sheepishly: “Isn’t everything on Twitter fake?”

Get used to it — fakery is reality for America’s next president, Augustus Trumpus.

OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s the editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. 

Jim Hightower: Wells Fargo scandal exposes the moral rot in American big business

“Stumpf” is a German adjective for someone who’s obtuse, slow on the uptake, imperceptive, or to put it bluntly, stupid.

Ironically, it also happens to be the surname of Wells Fargo’s belatedly ousted CEO, who’s now mired in what might be the most shameful banking scandal yet. For seven years or so, John Stumpf has presided over a venal bank policy, pressuring Wells Fargo’s retailing employees into systematically stealing from particularly vulnerable, low-income customers of the bank.

During this time, he padded his own fortune with more than $100 million in personal pay. When this mass rip-off was recently exposed, Stumpf — the big boss getting the big bucks to be in charge — pleaded ignorance.

In an act of what Sen.  Elizabeth Warren called “gutless leadership,” he publicly blamed the corrupt corporate culture on thousands of the bank’s low-level employees.

But the chief wasn’t the only stumpf at Wells Fargo. Where were its board members, who are empowered and duty-bound to set, monitor and assure ethical corporate behavior from the top down?

For seven years, this 15-member board of governance sat idle, apparently incurious about their corporation’s flagrant, widespread thievery, which involved setting up bogus and unasked-for accounts in the names of Wells Fargo  retail customers even after a 2013 report by the Los Angeles Times exposed it.

Far from investigating and clamping down, the board kept shoving multimillion-dollar bonuses at Stumpf and other top executives.

Bear in mind that this is a powerhouse board, made up of top executives from other corporations, former government financial officials, and big time academics. And they are extremely well-paid to be diligent, getting up to $400,000 a year to keep Wells Fargo honest.

What’s at work here is the ethical rot that now consumes America’s entire corporate system — a stumpf system that steals from the many to further enrich the few, buying off the integrity and vigilance of those who run it.

OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s the editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. Distributed by OtherWords.org.

Jim Hightower: Banks like Goldman Sachs don't commit crimes, their bankers do

Hey, stop complaining that our government coddles Wall Street’s big, money-grubbing banks.

Sure, they went belly-up and crashed our economy with their greed. And, yes, Washington bailed them out, while ignoring the plight of workaday people who lost jobs, homes, businesses, wealth, and hope.

But come on, buckos. Haven’t you noticed that the Feds are now socking the banksters with huge penalties for their wrongdoings?

Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs, for example, was recently punched in its corporate gut with a jaw-dropping $5 billion punishment for its illegal schemes. It’s hard to comprehend that much money, so think of it like this: If you paid out $100,000 every day, it would take you nearly 28 years to pay off just $1 billion.

So imagine having to pull five big Bs out of your wallet. That should make even the most arrogant and avaricious high-finance flim-flammer think twice before risking such scams.

So these negotiated settlements between the Feds and the big banks will effectively deter repeats of the 2008 Wall Street debacle, right?

Actually, no.

Notice that the $5 billion punishment is applied to Goldman Sachs, not to the “Goldman Sackers.” The bank’s shareholders have to cough up the penalty, rather than the executives who did the bad deeds.

Remember, banks don’t commit crimes — bankers do. Yet Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein just awarded himself a $23 million paycheck for his work last year. That work essentially amounted to negotiating a deal with the government to make shareholders pay for the bankers’ wrongdoings — while he and other top executives keep their jobs and keep pocketing millions.

What a great example for young financial executives. With no punishment, the next generation of banksters can view Blankfein’s story as a model for Wall Street success, rather than a deterrent to corruption.

Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer and editor of the Hightower Lowdown.

Jim Hightower: A Koch brother's pseudo-academic investment

Via OtherWords.org

First came withering hoots of laughter when the honchos of George Mason University named their law school the Antonin Scalia School Of Law — or ASSOL, for short. It was an honor Scalia might’ve merited, but very embarrassing for the university.

Even though administrators quickly changed the name to the Scalia Law School, their embarrassment turned into shame. It turns out they’d sold the naming rights to none other than Charles Koch, a multibillionaire right-wing extremist.

For years, Koch and other moneyed corporatists have quietly pumped millions into pseudo-academic centers on college campuses to promote their laissez-faire ideology, including a handful at George Mason itself.

But here was Virginia’s largest public university letting the infamous Koch brother and another un-named right-winger give $30 million in exchange for branding George Mason’s law school — one of the university’s core academic institutions — with Scalia’s name.

Students and faculty rebelled at the idea that integrity of their university, supposedly a center of enlightenment and erudition, was to be identified with a judge notorious for veering into racist and homophobic rants, and for being the Supreme Court’s most obsequious servant of plutocratic corporate rule.

Rebellion turned to fury when it came out that the ‘donation’ also required school officialsto commit taxpayer money to finance 12 new professorships and two new centers to promote the Koch brothers’ fantasies of free-market plutocracy.

The university’s president calls this perfidious transaction a simple ‘'naming gift.’'  But who is he to put the name of the people’s law school up for sale? And why was it sold in a secret, no-bid process?

Koch wasn’t making a gift. He was buying a public asset — including the university’s integrity.

Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker.

Jim Hightower: Those billboards are watching you

Via OtherWords.org

OK, people, we need to discuss billboards. Yes, we really must.

At best, these giant corporate placards are problematic — they loom garishly over us, clutter our landscapes, and intrude into our communities with no respect for local aesthetics or preferences. Now, however, billboards are getting a high-tech reboot, allowing advertisers to invade not only our places, but also our privacy.

Having to see billboards everywhere is bad enough. Far worse, though, is that the modernized, digitalized, computerized structures can see you — and track you.

Clear Channel Outdoor Americas, having already splattered the country with tens of thousands of billboards, has revealed that it’s partnering with AT&T and other data snoops to erect “smart” billboards that will know and record when you drive or walk past one.

Using your own mobile phone, they can then follow your travel patterns and consumer behavior. Aggregating that information with other available data, Clear Channel can then know the average age and gender of passersby who see an ad on a particular billboard and know whether they later make purchases.

It’s “a bit creepy,” admits Andy Stevens — Clear Channel’s own vice president for “research and insights.”

Stevens rationalizes the company’s zippy new Orwellian billboards as just another step into the digital future: “We’re just tapping into an existing data ecosystem,” he shrugs. The millions of profiles collected by Clear Channel are “obviously…very valuable to an advertiser.”

Yet maybe they’re more valuable to those of us who treasure our privacy and have given no permission to be targeted and tracked by a billboard huckster. And we thought government spying was out of control.

For information on corporate snooping, go to www.epic.org.

OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer and public speaker. He’s the editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. 

Jim Hightower: Scalia was a frequent flyer on 'Conflict-of-Interest Airlines'

Via OtherWords.org

The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s demise at a Texas resort shows why we can't trust judges to police their own integrity.

How curious that he died, of all places, in an exclusive West Texas hunting lodge.

Yet more curious, all expenses for hizzonor’s February stay were paid by the resort’s owner, John Poindexter. He’s a Houston manufacturing mogul who won a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court in an age-discrimination case last year.

In another curiosity, the names of some 35 other people who were in Scalia’s hunting party are being kept secret. Moreover, the late judge — an ardent promoter of corporate supremacy over people’s rights — was flown to the remote getaway for free aboard someone’s or some corporation’s private jet. The name of this generous benefactor has also been withheld.

Curious, huh?

This isn’t a murder mystery — by all accounts, Scalia died of natural causes. It’s a moral mystery: Who was buying (or repaying) favors from an enormously powerful member of America’s highest court?

There’s a bit of poetic justice in the fact that Justice Scalia, in particular, passed away under such circumstances, for his expiration exposes a little known ethical loophole through which moneyed interests can curry special favors from Supremes: judicial junkets.

The West Texas hunting excursion was hardly Scalia’s first freebie. He was the Supreme Court’s most frequent flyer aboard “Conflict-of-Interest Airlines,” accepting more than 280 privately paid-for jaunts in the past dozen years to luxury destinations, including Hawaii, Hong Kong, Ireland, Napa Valley, Palm Springs and Switzerland.

Every lower-court judge is subject to a formal code of conduct, but the nine top court judges have exempted themselves from those rules. Scalia’s inconvenient demise shows why we can’t trust them to police their own integrity.

For more information, go to www.FixTheCourt.org.

Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker.

Jim Hightower: National Park Service is selling its soul

  While Americans celebrate the 100th anniversary of our National Park Service, America’s so-called “leaders” are aggressively converting these jewels of the common good into just another corporate cash cow.

This commercialization started with “co-branding” agreements,rationalized by NPS officials as “aligning the economic and historical legacies” of parks with advertisers. In other words, they’re selling the Park Service’s proud public brand…as well as its soul.

First in line was Coca-Cola. A few years back, the multibillion-dollar colossus became a “Proud Partner” of our National Parks by making a mere $2.5 million tax-deductible donation to support their stewardship.

In return, Coke got exclusive rights to use park logos in its ads — and it was allowed to veto the Park Service’s plan to ban sales of bottled water in the Grand Canyon.

Then this April, the Park Service abandoned its policy of rejecting any ties to alcohol products when Anheuser-Busch became another proud partner by making its own $2.5 million tax-deductible “gift.”Disposable plastic bottles are that park’s biggest source of trash, but Coke owns the Dasani brand of water, so bye-bye ban. Public outrage forced officials to reverse this crass move, but the agency’s integrity has yet to recover.

In turn, the Budweiser brand got the Statue of Liberty. Not literally, but symbolically: Bud now has the right to plaster Lady Liberty, an iconic symbol of the United States itself, on its cans.

And get a whiff of this: In return for a big contribution, the government authorized Air Wick to market a new fragrance collection as being “uniquely inspired by America’s national parks.”

The commercialization of these priceless public places isn’t creeping — it’s running rampant.

Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer and public speaker. This piece originated at OtherWords.org.

Jim Hightower: Holder to serve corporate masters even more directly

Novelist Thomas Wolfe famously wrote: “You can’t go home again.” But Eric Holder has proven him wrong.

Holder, who served as President  Obama’s attorney general until stepping down earlier this year, recently returned to his old home — Covington & Burling.

Where’s that? Well, it’s not actually a place, but a powerhouse Washington lobbying and lawyering outfit. It runs interference in Washington for such Wall Street heavyweights as Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo — and it’s a place where Holder definitely feels at home.

After serving as a deputy attorney general in the 1990s, Holder was invited in 2001 to leave his government job and join the corporate covey of Covington & Burling lawyers. There, he happily hauled water for corporations until tapped to re-enter the government in 2009.

The most striking thing about Holder’s six-year run as America’s top lawyer was his ever-so-delicate treatment of the Wall Street banksters who crashed our economy in 2008.

Despite blatant cases of massive fraud and finagling, Holder failed to prosecute even one of the top Wall Streeters involved. Indeed, he kindly de-prioritized criminal prosecutions of mortgage fraud, and even publicly embraced the soft-on-corporate-crime notion that Wall Street banks are “too big to fail” and “too big to jail.”

It’s no surprise that Holder is once again spinning through the revolving door of government service to rejoin his corporate family at Covington & Burling. In fact, in his years away, the firm kept a primo corner office empty for him, awaiting his return home.

In a way, he never really left. But now his paycheck for serving corporate interests will be many millions of dollars a year. That should make this a happy homecoming.

Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer and public speaker.  This originated at OtherWords.org.