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Hightower Lowdown
If you do not speak up when it matters, when would it matter that you speak? -- Hightower
In This Issue
The subprime mortgage disaster
Loan sharks wreak havoc on Main Street and Wall Street
Also in this issue:
Do Something!
August's 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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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.