Corporate Giants Swindling $166 Billion From Consumers

The Goofy Billionaires Cult Is Planning Our Post-Human Future

CGB stands for the Cult of Goofy Billionaires, and they are way, way, waaay goofier than you might imagine. I’m talking about prestigious, frontline, brand-name billionaires: Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Peter Thiel, and other Silicon Valley Royals who perceive themselves as otherworldly geniuses. As such, they feel entitled to redesign your, my, and humanity’s future [https://oligarchwatch.substack.com/p/the-billionaires-who-think-humanity]– whether we want them to or not. So, for months, these techno-oligarchs have been furtively imposing a multitrillion-dollar network of invasive data centers all across America. Why? To power a whole new mechanomorphic species they call “generative AI chatbots.” Musk gushes that the super-intelligent bots will be “more human than humans” able to reproduce themselves, evolve, and displace us primitives in nearly every workplace. Which raises the question: Could this gaggle of billionaire megalomaniacs get any goofier? Gosh, yes! Musk, Thiel, and others have become disciples of a Swedish “philosopher” named Bostrom. He idealizes a “post-human future” in which us biological earthlings literally merge into the digital machine race. Indeed, Judd Legum [https://substack.com/profile/364398-judd-legum] investigative Substack, Oligarch Watch [https://open.substack.com/pub/oligarchwatch], reports that Musk has already launched a venture to produce implants to fuse human brains with computers. Meanwhile, Thiel, the PayPal/Palantir billionaire, says policymakers should stop worrying about little problems like world wars and climate change, for “transhumanism” technology will create a digital species that is immortal. He also warns ominously that anyone who tries to regulate AI is doing the bidding of “The Antichrist.” Then there’s Google’s goofy billionaire, Larry Page, who blithely says “if we let digital minds be free… the outcome is almost certain to be good.” Almost certain? Sure, Larry, unbridled tech never goes bad, right? Do something! The Electronic Frontier Foundation [https://www.eff.org/issues/ai] has been at the forefront of the fight to protect humans from and with tech advances for decades, and their work on the impact of AI is vital. Dive in here to join up with them [https://www.eff.org/issues/ai]. Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe [https://jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Corporate Giants Swindling $166 Billion From Consumers

Years ago, Ray Charles sang: “Them that’s got is them that gets, and I ain’t got nothin’ yet.” Millions of workaday Americans today are wailing that blues refrain, thanks to price increases caused by Donald Trump’s slap-happy tariff policy. He gloated that by imposing import levies of $166 billion on foreign companies, they would be forced to lower the prices they charge us. But, Professor Trump, nearly all tariffs are passed along to us consumers, so you’re raising our prices! Indeed, on average, his tariffs have jacked up costs for every American household by [https://www.cfr.org/articles/a-year-after-liberation-day-experts-review-the-costs-of-trumps-tariffs]about $1,500 a year [https://www.cfr.org/articles/a-year-after-liberation-day-experts-review-the-costs-of-trumps-tariffs]! But the Supreme Court has now decreed Trump’s tariffs illegal, so those who paid them are entitled to refunds. Great! Walmart rushed to the front of the line, demanding a $10 billion refund, while other giants are demanding paybacks of more than a billion each. But wait. What about you? Those corporations had paid Trump’s tariffs with money they got by raising prices on you and me. In short, WE THE CONSUMERS paid about 90 percent of that $166 billion out of our pockets. So where’s our refund? So far, only Costco has publicly pledged to pass the refund back to its customers [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/24/us/politics/companies-consumers-tariff-refunds.html], while other corporate giants just wink and pocket the cash. For example, a Walmart executive simply announced that [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/24/us/politics/companies-consumers-tariff-refunds.html]“[We will] certainly avail ourselves” of any refund process. Economists have a technical word for that process: “Stealing.” The Walmarts jack up their prices to pay for Trump’s tariff scam, then grab the refunds that workaday consumers are owed. As Ray Charles sang in another blues number: “Why you treat me so mean?” Do something Tired of corporations stealing from you? Our friends at Public Citizen have a whole catalog of resources [https://www.citizen.org/topic/globalization-trade/the-truth-about-tariffs/] dedicated to tariffs—get involved here [https://www.citizen.org/topic/globalization-trade/the-truth-about-tariffs/]. Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe [https://jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

How Immoral Have Corporate Bosses Become?

“Mingy” is a useful word. It merges stingy with mean, pretty well summing up the prevailing ethic of today’s corporate bosses. Take mingy CEOs of multibillion-dollar powerhouses like Amazon and 7-Eleven. They’ve been refusing to accommodate even the simplest needs of – get this – their pregnant employees. As the New York Times reports, women who’re heavy with child can suffer acute health crises if they’re on their feet too long. For example, a pregnant Amazon warehouse worker in upstate New York became breathless and lightheaded, so her doctor told her to work sitting down periodically. She got a chair and felt better. But uh-uh, an Amazon manager took her chair away and insisted she stand [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/14/well/live/pregnant-workers-amazon-speedway.html]! This caused her to be hospitalized several times. Then, Amazon fired her for having too many medical absences. Or take the 27-year-old pregnant check-out clerk at Speedway, the gas station chain owned by 7-Eleven. To ease the strain of standing for hours, she was allowed to sit on some milk crates as she worked the counter. No, barked higher-ups, who took her crates away. She soon had a pregnancy emergency, and her doctor told her not to work for several days. So, Speedway put her on “involuntary unpaid leave.” [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/14/well/live/pregnant-workers-amazon-speedway.html] But, technically she wasn’t fired, so the corporate giant prevented her from getting unemployment pay. This is corporate assault, targeting women in low-wage jobs. It’s so common that Congress had to pass a law, the “Pregnant Workers Fairness Act,” to say: Stop it! But it hasn’t stopped, for Trump officials are not eager to punish multimillion-dollar corporate bosses. But that raises the fundamental ethical question: Why don’t bosses stop themselves? Have I mentioned that “boss,” spelled backwards, is double-S-O-B? Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe [https://jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Forget Being "Moderate"—Democrats Should Be the Mad-As-Hell Party

There are towns in Texas named New Deal, Fair Play, Progresso, Utopia—and even Buck Naked! But what you won’t find is any town called “Moderate, Texas.” I offer this curiosity to the monied powers and milquetoast party leaders who keep insisting that Democrats must moderate their progressive policies, abandon their egalitarian commitments, and become more… well, more corporate. Hello – today’s majority hates the everyday arrogance, avarice, and abuse that corporate supremacy has unleashed on workers, consumers, local businesses, family farmers, the poor, the sick, the “different,” our environment… and democracy itself. The time when “captains of industry” were admired is long-gone. Today’s billionaire prigs – such as Bezos, Musk, and Zuckerberg – are clownishly greedy and foolish, becoming so reviled that they can’t go out in public. As journalist Perry Bacon points out in [https://newrepublic.com/article/207435/moderate-democratic-voters-economic-populism]New Republic [https://newrepublic.com/article/207435/moderate-democratic-voters-economic-populism], even moderate Democrats aren’t moderate anymore: “Around 70 percent” of them, he reports, bemoan the fact that Party leaders are “too timid in taxing the rich, taxing corporations, and cracking down on companies that break the law.” Polls aside, you can find out how moderates (and even conservatives) feel about moving the Party of the People to the middle of the road by visiting rural areas in Virginia, Illinois, Texas, or other states being invaded by autocratic corporate billionaires trying to usurp vast amounts of land water and energy for their AI data centers. Locals are furious at this plutocratic power grab and wondering if anyone will stand with them in full-force populist rebellion against the profiteers. We’re in a 1932 moment. Far from becoming a corporate kiss-up party, people want and need Democrats to be the kick-ass party! Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe [https://jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

A Government Of, By, and For Billionaires?

Congress keeps churning out laws that the great majority of us have explicitly, consistently, and loudly said we do not want! Are those lawmakers deaf? No, their ears are stuffed with ever-increasing wads of political cash from corporations and the superrich, so our words can’t reach their eardrums. Take Tim Sheehy, a Montana Republican elected two years ago to the US Senate. He quickly proved to be a tail-wagging fetcher of more plutocratic tax-giveaways and most anything else the billionaire class desires. Why? Money. His campaign was launched and supercharged by such barons of Wall Street and Silicon Valley as [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/us/billionaires-federal-election-campaign-contributions.html]Steve Schwarzman [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/us/billionaires-federal-election-campaign-contributions.html]. Honcho of a private equity powerhouse, Schwarzman greased Sheehy’s political skids with an $8 million check. A New York Times analysis later found that at least 63 other billionaire families bought a piece of the fledgling Montana senator that year. He’s not their only purchase, of course. The Times’ tally found 300 billionaire families invested more than $3 billion in federal candidates in 2024. Meanwhile, not only does Congress do what We the People don’t want, they also refuse to do what we do want. Most emphatically, that includes a huge, bipartisan majority who want all corporate money out of political races and solid limits on donations by the rich. Big Money is a stark threat to America, says Marc Raciot, Montana’s former Republican governor. It’s turning our democratic republic into a place where a few wealthy people can legally spend millions to direct how the government runs. “Does any reasonable person on the planet think that’s appropriate,” he asks? To help assert a people’s democracy over corporate plutocracy, go to EndCitizensUnited.org [http://EndCitizensUnited.org]. Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe [https://jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]