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Hightower Lowdown
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three left turns do. -- Jim Hightower
December's Lowdown
Corporate elites and their small-minded political servants are creating the Incredibly Shrinking America
"We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." What a paragraph! This sparse, 52-word opening of our Constitution did not merely launch a fledgling nation--but a bold experiment in democratic idealism.
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The subprime mortgage disaster
Loan sharks wreak havoc on Main Street and Wall Street
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SUING THE WORMPOOP PEOPLE
Corporate execs are always whining that they are besieged with lawsuits, but guess what group does more suing than anyone else? Corporations!
Consider Scotts MiracleGro, a multi-billion-dollar global chemical corporation that is suing a tiny upstart firm named TerraCycle. This enterprising small company is the sort of business that ought to be celebrated, not sued. A maker of all-natural garden products, TerraCycle's best seller is an ecofriendly plant food made of--are you ready?--liquified worm poop. Started in 2003 by a 25-year-old college dropout, the company feeds organic scraps to worms. The resulting waste is then brewed into a compost tea that is put into recycled soda bottles collected by school groups and charities.
Scotts, which makes synthetic plant food and controls some 60 percent of America's lawn and garden market, has unleashed a pack of corporate lawyers to sue TerraCycle because its recycled packages have green and yellow labels, the very colors used by Scotts. Anyone who looks at the two products can immediately see the difference, starting with the big words "Worm Poop" on TerraCycle's label. There's a clue! As for the green and yellow, no corporation can own colors, and many garden-care companies go for green and yellow.
To learn seven ways you can help TerraCycle survive this attempt to drive them bankrupt, go to www.suedbyscotts.com.