Help us out by throwing some cash in the bucket:
Click here to read Hightower's personal message about
REAL CHANGE
(not small change)
Hightower Lowdown
"Loyalty to country, always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it." -- Mark Twain
In This Issue
July's Lowdown
Big biz wants to own the information superhighway while We the People bump along the backroads
In the 1970s, Lily Tomlin developed an iconic comic character she named Ernestine--a telephone clerk who took perverse pleasure from hectoring customers. Her character was a perfect portrayal of the arrogance of AT&T, the monopolistic telephone giant of that day. In one skit on on the TV show, Laugh-In, Tomlin had Ernestine delivering a TV pitch for the corporation:
"A gracious hello," she cheerfully began, speaking directly into the camera. "Here at the Phone Company, we handle 84 billion calls a year. So, we realize that every so often, you can't get an operator, or for no apparent reason your phone goes out of order, or perhaps you get charged for a call you didn't make. We don't care!"
[read more]
Stay in the Loop
Sign up for email alerts, from breaking news to weekly commentary:
Recent Lowdowns
Search
Subscriber Features
Manage your account by logging in. Don't have an account? Get the Lowdown in the mail every month -- for the unbelievable, ridiculous, low, low price of $15 per year! Save a tree and read it online for just $10 per year!
The General Store
Visit Hightower's General Store, to buy high-power Hightower books and other goodies like that.
Home | Contact | RSS | Privacy policy | Copyright Public Intelligence, Inc., all rights reserved 1999-2010
He's number one!
Michael Eisner is back at the top of his game. The chief mousketeer at Disney Inc. had lost his #1 ranking as the highest paid CEO in all of corporatedom, but this year's Business Week listings (April 14th issue) put him back at the head of the pack. He hauled in $287,000 last year. Not for the year nor for a month, a week, or a day. He took $287,000 an hour. He's also #1 in Business Week's rankings of chief execs who delivered the least value to their shareholders for the pay they got. And this says nothing about Eisner's continuing push to exploit sweatshop labor in Haiti, China, and elsewhere, nor about his move to cut healthcare benefits for the low wage workers he dresses up as Pluto and Goofy at Disney World and Disneyland. Michael seems to think he's top dog . . . and everyone else is just a bunch of fire hydrants.