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Jim Hightower
Even a dead fish can go with the flow. -- Jim Hightower
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Hightower Lowdown:
Corporations scoff at workers' rights--even the right to come home from work alive
Their names probably won't mean mean anything to you, but these people ought to have some modicum of personal recognition: Jason Anderson, Aaron Dale "Bubba" Burkeen, Donald Clark, Stephen Curtis, Gordon Jones, Roy Wyatt Kemp, Karl Kleppinger, Blair Manuel, Dewey Revette, Shane Roshto, and Adam Weise. These are the 11 workers who were killed when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank into the Gulf of Mexico on April 20.
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The General Store
Swim Against the Current
The New York Times bestselling author and America's funniest activist gives the lowdown on...
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There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos
"I make a lot of money these days speaking to corporations, so I'd really prefer not to admit how...
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"The People Are Revolting! (in the very best sense of the word)"
With his aw-shucks charisma and no-nonsense attitude, he dishes out what's wrong with the eroding...
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Have a gander at the whole store here...
Job Export Subsidies / ACME Boot
James Cash Penney -- yes, the founder of J.C. Penney's -- believed in doing unto employees as you would have them do unto you. "Golden Rule principles, "he said, are just as necessary for operating a business profitably as are trucks, typewriters, or twine." Well, in today's multinational corporate world, Mr. Penney's principles have been tossed out the window . . . along with thousands of American workers. The only Golden Rule these guys are following is the one that says. "Those with the Gold . . . Rule." Ask folks in Tennessee. Jim Hightower . . . right back with their story.
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Jim Hightower talking about a boot company that's booting American workers and taxpayers right in the tail bone.
For half-a-century Acme Boot was a solid family-firm based in Clarksville, Tennessee. But in 1985, in an attack of VooDoo Economics, a corporate-takeover specialist named William Farley teamed up with Junk- Bond King Michael Milkin to take-over Acme Boot Company. Since then, the VooDoo been hitting the fan.
To pay for his buyout, Farley raided Acme's $10 million cash reserves, mortgaged its main plant, closed two other Acme plants, tossed out 700 workers, and cut wages. Last December, workers learned Farley was opening a new Acme plant . . . in Puerto Rico. Acme started hiring 200 Puerto Rican workers, and fired 200 Clarksville workers.
Now follow the bouncing ball there, because this is the tricky part: you and I are subsidizing this runaway plant through federal tax-breaks and job-training funds. This makes less sense than a Rooster wearing overalls, but there it is.
Our government lets Acme bring all its profits from Puerto Rico back to the US . . . and not pay A DIME in taxes on them. We also subsidize each Puerto Rican worker that companies like Acme hire. The subsidy averages $27,000 per worker, per year -- which is about twice what the companies actually pay the workers.
Federal law even allows Acme to import boot parts from India and Brazil, assemble them in Puerto Rico . . . and sell them here with a "Made in the USA" label.
This is Jim Hightower saying to Bill Clinton . . . STOP THIS! GIVE THE BOOT TO THESE SUBSIDIES!
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