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Hightower Lowdown
"The issue isn't just jobs. Even slaves had jobs. The issue is wages." -- 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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In This Issue
and firing workers to get even richer
American ceos are wallowing in wealth
Also in this issue:
- Clinton backs corporate accountability!
- Sen. murray's amazing letter
- Senatorial hot air
- The fowlest u.s. factories
- California gets overruled
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California gets overruled
The good citizens of California are waking up to the joys of globalization, thanks to NAFTA and a Canadian corporation named Methanex.
Last March, the governor of California announced a phase-out of a cancer-causing gasoline additive called MTBE (Methyl Teriaty Butyl Ether). It seems that MTBE has been leaking into the ground water, lakes, and some 10,000 wells throughout California. So the governor, the highest elected official of the people in the most populous state in America, just said no to this additive.
Halt! said Methanex Inc., which manufactures an ingredient used in the banned additive. Such a move by the governor interferes with the profit-making potential of our investors, and under Chapter 11 of NAFTA, this is an illegal "expropriation" of our profits. Therefore, sayeth Methanex, ye Californians must withdraw your ban on MTBE, or the taxpayers of the United States must pay us a billion dollars.
Why do I think of the Mafia when I hear of insane shakedowns like this?