Corporate CEOs Demand Big Bucks – Plus Nickels and Dimes

Corporate CEOs Demand Big Bucks – Plus Nickels and Dimes

Until recently, corporate executives were eager to demonstrate how “green” they were. But then came Trump, trashing the very idea of a green economy. So, to appease the vengeful Republican, obsequious CEOs rushed to dump their green principles. Except for one especially verdant area of the corporate culture: CEO compensation. As widely reported, top executive pay has surged during the Trump regime. But wait, they want more, so other tendrils of executive pay have sprouted and grown like Jack’s beanstalk, further separating those at the top from the rest of us. Wall Street Journal reporters have uncovered some $600 million in [https://www.fastcompany.com/91580368/major-us-firms-spent-600-million-on-perks-for-executives]executive perks [https://www.fastcompany.com/91580368/major-us-firms-spent-600-million-on-perks-for-executives] that big corporations shelled out to their honchos last year. For example, investors in Apollo, the avaricious Wall Street huckster, laid out nearly a million for luxury limo and chauffeur services so their billionaire CEO wouldn’t have to open the car door by himself. For tax purposes, Apollo called this a “security measure,” rather than the pompous plutocratic perk it is. Already overpaid, these royals have come to expect all of life’s needs and whims to be covered, including: * $121,000 in free tickets to ballgames to please the multimillionaire chief of Roto-Rooter, who is said to be “a huge sports fan.” * $20,000 in booze for the head of a liquor conglomerate, which insists the freebie is awarded to enhance the boss’ “knowledge of the product.” * And a $492 payout to cover the maintenance cost on a home generator for the chief of Hewlett Packard – who is paid $23 million a year. An old adage claims that it’s the little things that matter… and these CEO entitlements show just how little corporate “leaders” have become. Do something! To stay on top of all-things-CEO-pay, check out Inequality.org’s work on the topic [https://inequality.org/topics/executive-pay/] and take action with the organizations they recommend here [https://inequality.org/resources/organizations/organizing-projects/]. 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 Data Center Revolt Is a Populist Rebellion Against Corporate Rule

Not that it matters, but sometimes I wonder if the billionaire potentates of artificial intelligence ever wonder why they’ve become so despised. I doubt it, since introspection doesn’t seem to be in the DNA of hubristic AI demigods like Bezos, Musk, and Zuckerberg. Nor are they programming such qualities into their “superintelligent bots.” So, let me help them see themselves. First, today’s eruptions of public hatred toward them are not, as they want us to believe, just petty jealousy by people who want to be like them. Really… be like Musk? His ugliness is not just skin-deep – it emanates from his inner core. Such aloof AI profiteers have sparked a nationwide prairie fire of anger [https://datacenteropposition.com/] by plundering local water supplies, farmland, electric power, and tax subsidies. They’re callously treating our communities as nothing more than a series of financial transactions for them to be consummate. But people’s rebellion is not merely about monetary prices and property. Fundamentally, it’s fueled by corporate elites’ total disregard for the basic human value of Fairness. Even pre-school children comprehend the moral implication of “That’s not fair!” The corporate gold rush to an AI future is not about the mystical possibilities of technology, but old-fashioned greed – moneyed elites grabbing more profits and control. And there’s nothing fair about either. The spreading rebellion against AI arrogance is raising a politically explosive moral question: “Who the Hell elected you selfish screw-ups to dictate our future?” Musk & Co. say they don’t even believe in democracy, so why would We the People let them remake society in their totalitarian image? To join your local rebellion, go to jimhightower.com/datacenters [http://jimhightower.com/datacenters]. Do something! There are more and more groups forming around the country to fight this exploitation— so many that we’re having a hard time keeping track of them all! Here are a few hubs that will help you find your way to join the rebellion: * Data Center Opposition Report [https://datacenteropposition.com/]: A regularly-published comprehensive report on the numbers of fights out there, with case studies for inspiration * The Stop Data Centers Coalition has a list of member organizations [https://stopdatacenterscoalition.org/full-list-of-organizations-calling-for-a-national-data-center-moratorium/] who are calling for a national data center moratorium * The Coalition for Responsible Data Center Development, a Minnesota based organization, has published a map of Facebook groups [https://www.datacenterresponsibility.com/mapofcommunityorganizations] all over the country fighting data centers * One of our top go-to resources are the toolkits that MediaJustice [https://mediajustice.org/tools/] has created * Kairos Fellowship also has a slew of guides [https://www.kairosfellows.org/fightdatacenters]and is developing a hotline that local groups can call for advice. 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]

Friday Signpost: Hightower's Radical "Socialism" in 1980s Texas

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] In 1982, the Dallas Morning News editorial page had a name for a guy who wanted to bring back farmers markets in Texas: socialist. Not Medicare for All. Not a wealth tax. Farmers markets. The kind with watermelons and a guy selling tomatoes off a folding table. Hightower ran for Texas Agriculture Commissioner with the idea as a key part of his platform anyway. He won. And in his first year in office, he and a staff of six built a hundred of them across the state. Forty-some years later, Democratic strategists are still having the same panic attack about socialism. Turns out the “radical” thing was never the label itself; it was whether the guy delivered on campaign promises. Here, Hightower tells the story himself: the watermelon stand outside Weatherford that started it all, how Hightower’s staff created the market access for the farmers, and the line he used to shut the haters up for good — “the word ‘free’ in ‘free enterprise’ is not an adjective. It is a verb.”

Why Trust High-Tech Billionaires to Save Humanity?

Here’s an interesting fact: Dinosaurs dominated Earth for 165 million years – and they assumed they always would. Which brings us to… well, us. We bipedal, far-ranging, Homo sapien primates have certainly established our dominance over modern-day Mother Earth. And even though our reign has only lasted about 200,000 years, we 21st Century humans grandly assume that we’re ordained by the gods to rule ad infinitum over our planet (and beyond). But – oops! – unfortunately we’ve based our preeminence on the unsustainable consumption of our domain, rather than on stewardship for the ages. Under the global misguidance of corporate, political, religious, academic, and other Powers That Be, our large-brained species has ended up making an awful mess of the nest we inherited. Elite plunderers and profiteers have imposed an ethic of greed, inequality, and even inhumanity that is devouring everything from Earth’s climate to our basic human values of fairness and justice. Leading this careless assault is a clique of arrogant and abusive high-tech gabillionaires who consider themselves geniuses because, well… they’re rich! Consider Elon Musk, presently the richest of the world’s richest, who postures as an uber-brained deep thinker, social engineer, and whirling corporate dervish. He presently runs not one, but three mega-corps (Tesla, X, and SpaceX) while also rewriting the rules of free speech, telling American’s how to vote, and claiming he’ll save humanity by colonizing Mars. But wait – strip away the hype, and Musk is just another self-serving plutocratic ravager, a cartoonish robber baron whose “genius” lies in (1) taking credit (and profit) from other people, (2) demanding subsidies and special breaks from government, (3) cheating workers and customers, and (4) suing everyone for his failures. If billionaire humanoids like Elon really wanted to save us from extinction, they should do the honorable thing… by going first. 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 Say: Get Out of Our Way, Fools!

Does becoming a billionaire turn one into an insufferable jerk, or is that an innate quality they bring to the position? Big-name billionaires – like Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg – literally flaunt their irrepressible jerkism, but the disease seems to inflict their entire class of über-rich corporate royals. Its telltale symptoms are not their grandiose mansions and yachts, but their sudden impulse to instruct us regular people on how to think. In particular, they’re now demanding that we get out of their way so they can remake society in their image. Jensen Huang, for example, a Silicon Valley techno-whiz who heads Nvidia, now the world’s richest corporation. He’s demanding that we transform our economy and social structure into a new order of AI dominance, piously chiding those of us who’re angry about AI’s destruction of our jobs, communities, water, farmland, and democracy itself. Tut-tut, the gabillionaire scolds, you petty people must “create new social norms [https://apnews.com/article/nvidea-huang-artificial-intelligence-8334abcbc6ed8d3d7889b640ec6fa05b]” to advance AI. Then there’s the little-known honcho of SoftBank, a multi-trillion-dollar Japanese tech powerhouse trying to impose AI supremacy worldwide. He’s now asserting a corporate “morality” of wealth, calling people who question AI “foolish.” He philosophizes that TechWorld “will transform our lives completely [https://fortune.com/2026/07/14/softbank-ceo-5-trillion-ai-demand-critics-bubble/]and do so in a way that generates profits [https://fortune.com/2026/07/14/softbank-ceo-5-trillion-ai-demand-critics-bubble/].” [https://fortune.com/2026/07/14/softbank-ceo-5-trillion-ai-demand-critics-bubble/] For whom? For billionaires, of course. So there you have a clear statement of the values and goals of AI profiteers: More for them, no matter the cost to everyone else. SoftBank’s imperious boss laughs at those of us who dare question his vision of an AI plutocracy, calling us fools who are “spitting upward.” No sir, look again. We are spitting straight at you. Do something! Want to join the rebellion against AI billionaires? Check out Public Citizen’s work on Big Tech and other corporate monsters: https://www.citizen.org/topic/consumer-worker-safeguards/big-tech/ [https://www.citizen.org/topic/consumer-worker-safeguards/big-tech/] 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]