Hightower Lowdown
"No matter how cynical you get, it's almost impossible to keep up." -- Lily Tomlin
In This Issue
but it's not guys in black helicopters, it's GLOBAL CORPORATIONS
December's Lowdown
The many REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL after Election Day 2008
After casting her ballot for Barack Obama, Amanda Jones said simply, "I feel good about voting for him." Ms. Jones, of Cedar Creek, Texas (a town just south of Austin), is African-American, and what gives her vote some historic punch is that she's 109 years old. Her father was a slave. Her mother was born right after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. She's been through it all--Jim Crow segregation, women's suffrage, the Great Depression, the poll tax, FDR, the civil-rights movement, desegregation, 13 years of George W (five as guv, eight as prez), and now: Barack Obama. This last change fills her with joy, she says.
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So this is prosperity?
All the politicians, media sparklies, and Wall Street analysts tell us so. The stock market's soaring, people are buying fabulous new homes, and there's caviar in every pot!
Unless, of course, you live in the real world. Out here, it's a different story.
In Bill Clinton's State of the Union address last month, he crowed that America was prospering like never before. Within the next two days, British Petroleum- Amoco announced 1,600 more US job losses as a result of its 1998 merger; Avery Dennison, maker of labels and office equipment cut 1,500 jobs to make its stock price more attractive; Universal-PolyGram punted 500 employees; Frito Lay shut down four plants employing 850 people.
Also, Burlington Industries, the clothing and textile giant shut down seven factories in North and South Carolina and Virginia, cutting 2,900 jobs and crushing the small communities where the plants were located. Guess how many new factories Burlington has opened in Mexico? Bingo if you said seven!
Thanks to Clinton's NAFTA deal, Burlington can exploit cheap labor there, then ship their goods back here to sell to us at high prices, But who's going to be left to buy their stuff?