Jim Hightower

Forget Trickle-down BS—Let’s Push Percolate-up Economics

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The past year proves that a lot of conventional economic wisdom is neither true nor wise. For example: “We don’t have the money.” The power elites tell us it would be nice to do the big-ticket reforms America needs, but the money just isn’t there. Then a pandemic slammed into America, and suddenly trillions of dollars gushed out of Washington for everything from subsidizing meatpackers to developing vaccines, revealing that the money is there. “We can’t increase the federal debt!” Yet, Trump and the Republican Congress didn’t hesitate to shove the national debt through the roof in 2017 to let a few corporations and billionaires …

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Now, Robots are Coming for White-Collar Jobs

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In CorporateSpeak, there are no “job cuts.” Instead, firings are blandly referred to as “employment adjustments.” Now, though, corporate wordsmiths will need a whole new thesaurus of euphemisms, for masses of job cuts are coming for employees in the higher echelons of the corporate structure. Don’t look now, but an unanticipated result of the ongoing pandemic is that it has given cover for CEOs to speed up the adoption of highly-advanced RPAs (Robotic Process Automation) to replace employees once assumed to be immune from displacement. As one analyst told a New York Times reporter, “With RPA you can build a bot that costs $10,000 a …

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The GOP’s Shameful War on Voters

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After looking into one of their main issues, I have to agree with Republicans: Our elections are being rigged. Anyone who takes an honest look can see that the electoral process is being stolen in broad daylight. By Republican lawmakers. In state after state, GOP governors and legislators are on a rampage to rig the system so you can’t vote. By “you,” I mean you African-Americans, Latinx voters, Asian-Americans, Indigenous Peoples, and practically all other non-white citizens. Also, you seniors, union members, poor people, students, immigrant families, and others with a tendency to vote for Democrats. Fraudulently shouting “fraud!” GOP officials insist that they must …

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A wealth of riches, a poverty of morals

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Let’s say you’re a millionaire. That’s a lot of money, right? Now let’s say you’re a billionaire. That’s a lot more money! But how much more? Think of all those dollars as seconds on a clock. A million seconds would total 11 days—but a billion seconds equals nearly 32 years! Rich is nice, but billionaire-rich is over the moon—and the wealth of billionaires is now zooming out of this world. There are only 2,200 of these überrich dudes in the world, but the wealth stashed away by these elites hit a new record this summer, averaging more than $4 billion each. They’ve even pocketed an …

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Why Billionaires are Detested

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The renowned Western Swing bandleader Bob Wills would joyously call out in mid-song, “Take it away, Leon,” bringing on a crowd-pleasing instrumental solo by steel guitar maestro, Leon McAuliffe. But now comes another Leon who’s such an off-key, screechy, Wall Street billionaire that crowds are shouting: “Go away, Leon!” He is hedge-fund huckster Leon Cooperman, who first gained public notoriety when he compared Barack Obama’s election to Hitler’s rise to power, and he later was dubbed “Crybaby Cooperman” after he got all teary-eyed during a TV interview in which he decried “the vilification of billionaires.” The sad rich man was weeping about Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s …

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The Problem With Plastic…Is Plastic

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In a world that’s clogged and choking with a massive overdose of plastic trash, you’ll be heartened to learn that governments and industries are teaming up to respond forcefully to this planetary crisis. Unfortunately, their response has been to engage in a global race to make more plastic stuff and to force poor countries to become dumping grounds for plastic garbage. Leading this Kafkaesque greedfest are such infamous plunderers and polluters as Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, and other petrochemical profiteers. With fossil fuel profits crashing, the giants are rushing to convert more of their over-supply of oil into plastic. But where to send the monstrous …

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