Business That Delivers for the Common Good

Business That Delivers for the Common Good

I’ve always supported small business, including having my own little media operation that has long allowed me to run my mouth for a living. One of the greatest aspects of being small – as opposed to corporation, conglomerate, or chain – is that you’re the boss. I don’t mean bossy, autocratic, “The Big Jerk.” I mean you have the flexibility to shape the enterprise according to deeper values than selfish profit and business “efficiency.” Concepts like fairness, integrity, community, diversity – even fun – come to the fore. Despite today’s corporatized, politically-rigid economic order, such value-driven small business mavericks flourish all across America. For example, P. Terry’s Burger Stand [https://pterrys.com/] here in Austin. Started 20 years ago by Patrick and Kathy Terry, it’s a small local chain of 38 restaurants embracing the down-home ideals of quality, affordability, and community support. But they also nurtured a core element of good business that is too often disregarded: Employees. As Kathy put it: “We believed that taking care of people – and building a great business – were not competing ideas.” Fair wages, basic needs, respect, belonging, advancement, happiness – these are the “inputs” that actually matter to the people who do the work and, through them, generate business success. Now the Terry’s are taking two big steps to expand their ideals. One, they’ve set up a company-wide profit-sharing system so their 1,800 employees get a share of business income in addition to their paycheck. And two, they’ve created a special trust to provide employee ownership that can carry the values into the future. To learn more about businesses that live up to such progressive ideals, go to the National Center for Employee Ownership: nceo.org [http://nceo.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]

AI Billionaires Want You to Save Them When They Need a Bailout

Step right up folks! Please don’t crowd! No need to shove, plenty here for everyone! Welcome to the Bonanza Extravaganza of the Artificial Intelligence “BOOM.” Silicon Valley billionaires are now proposing a scheme to deliver an unbelievable windfall to “every citizen.” Tech titans like Sam Altman [https://oligarchwatch.substack.com/p/an-ai-trojan-horse] of [https://oligarchwatch.substack.com/p/an-ai-trojan-horse]OpenAI [https://oligarchwatch.substack.com/p/an-ai-trojan-horse] are pushing the federal government to create a “public wealth fund” [https://oligarchwatch.substack.com/p/an-ai-trojan-horse] to let us commoners be investment partners in building the AI wonderworld. Lest you worry that this might be a corporate scam, note that Donald Trump, the deal-maker-in-chief, exults that letting the American public buy into the tech booms is a sure bet to “make them rich.” And Altman adds that a public investment fund would allow Joe and Jill Schmo to “participate directly in the upside of AI-driven growth.” Wow – benevolent capitalism! But wait – aren’t AI barons infamous greedheads who constantly rig the system for themselves, sneer at the public, and openly disdain government programs? Well… yes. And wait again – they say We would “share in the upside” of AI, but what about the downside? Far from profitable, all of the industry’s powerhouses, including OpenAI, are losing hundreds of billions of dollars while carelessly adding trillions in new debt and – shhhh – quietly admitting that their razzle-dazzle computer fantasies might not work. They won’t tell you this, but going bust is a real possibility. And that is why AI’s private-enterprise whizzes are now so desperately pushing us taxpayers to become their socialist “partners.” If and when they fail, your and my role is to save their bacon by demanding that “the public” deserves a government bailout. Do something! Want to help keep an eye on what Big Tech is trying to do with AI? Check out The Midas Project [https://www.themidasproject.com/], a new AI watchdog nonprofit. 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]

The System Is NOT “Rigged”… Say Those Who Rigged It

Millions of us are mad as hell at the moneyed establishment for constantly rigging the system against America’s workaday majority. Those riggers could save face by making some basic reforms, but instead, they’re getting mad at us for saying the system is rigged! Indeed, corporate powers have launched a PR offensive assailing what they call a “populist trend” of disgruntled people declaring that “everything is rigged.” They’re condemning anyone who talks about corporate oligarchies ripping off consumers, workers, students, and others. But wait – that’s not a “trend,” it’s peoples’ real-life experiences with the shameful corporate health care system, price gouging by food giants, the rapacious greed of AI billionaires, the flagrant theft of people’s voting rights, the gutting of public education… and so awful much more? You don’t have to be in Who’s Who to know What’s What: The system isrigged. Yet, the riggers demand that we “riggees” stop saying that word. One right-wing pundit whines [https://archive.ph/0HJH8] that it’s socially destructive for malcontents to suggest our laws are being manipulated to give more and more power to corporate elites. He asserts that even talking about it “undermines voters’ faith and trust in our government.” Trust in our government? Come on! The majority of our lawmakers openly sell themselves to corporate bidders, the White House is a shopping mall for rich donors, and the Supreme Court functions as a corporate subsidiary. It’s no secret that corrupt officials now routinely rig America’s economic and political systems for the rich. Far from prissily shutting off discussion of this scandal, we must drag it into the center of American politics… and crush it. Do something! To get involved in the dragging and crushing of these corrupt scandals, head over to our friends at Common Cause, commoncause.org [http://commoncause.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]

The Gilded Age of Billion-Dollar Political Bribery

Remember long, long ago in the old-timey days of politics, way back… maybe 10 years or so? In those olden times, if someone or some corporations gave a million dollars to a political candidate, the donation was scandalous news – a bribe! Ahhh, I miss those innocent days when ethical outrage could erupt over a mere million. These days, a high-dollar campaign would indignantly return such a paltry check to the donor, demanding that a couple of zeroes be added. Welcome to our glorious age of billion-dollar bribery. But a lot of people get lost in the illions, thinking that the “B” number is just an inflated “M.” So perhaps they assume the level of corruption hasn’t gotten that much worse. Uh… wrong! To clarify, think of those Ms and Bs not as dollars, but time – specifically seconds on the clock. A million seconds, is 11 days. But a billion seconds? That’s 32 years! And that’s a whopping difference in political punch. Aside from letting the insanely-rich buy particular government favors, billionaire bribery also allows that exclusive class to prevent policies that people actually want from getting on the public agenda. One glaring example is the overwhelming grassroots demand by bipartisan majorities to STOP! the ever-rising deluge of corrupt political cash that’s drowning American democracy. Congress can do this with two basic reforms. But both political parties have their heads stuck in money bags, so there is zero action by our “representatives” to do what America desperately needs. We the People have to be the cattle prod to move the system. To help, go to Campaign Legal Center: campaignlegal.org [http://campaignlegal.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]

VIDEO: Democrats Can Win the Heartland

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit jimhightower.substack.com [https://jimhightower.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_7] Last week, Hightower and I sat down for a couple beers with author Cory Haala, who’s just released When Democrats Won the Heartland [https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p089176] and who is a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point. Cory has brilliantly documented how, as the national Democratic Party moved towards corporate cash in the 1980s, maverick politicians throughout the Midwest and Plains states practiced good ol’ fashioned populism—and won. Not only did they win, but they also executed on the policies that they had championed while campaigning. Imagine that! With Hightower being part of the coalition of Texas populists who took the 1980s by storm, and who traveled to the northern states Cory covers to campaign, speechify and rally the grassroots, he’s featured prominently throughout the book. My favorite Hightower highlight comes right in the introduction: Rather than give a handout, they believed the role of government was to give a hand up. Put more bluntly by Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower: “If we’d have been liberals,” discussing struggling watermelon growers in Texas, “we’d have retrained them to do something else. As populists, we changed the market structure that was f***ing them over. That’s the difference.” Paid subscribers can watch the whole video above, and also read an excerpt of Cory’s book below. Enjoy!