Jim Hightower

Sordid Story: Corporate Executives Get Self-Gratification From M&As

Sadism and masochism (abbreviated as S&M) are generally frowned on in polite society as perverse acts of sexual gratification. But what should we make of M&As?

This is Wall Street’s abbreviation of mergers and acquisitions, which are acts of self-gratification practiced by top corporate executives. Such financial couplings can also be judged as socially perverse, since they eliminate economic competition, slash jobs, raise consumer prices, shrivel markets for local suppliers, stifle innovation, and dramatically increase inequality. Despite all this, M&As are cheered by the moneyed establishment as wholesome corporate friskiness to be tolerated because they produce gushers of wealth.

Yes ... but wealth for whom?

Consider the brazen merger now being hotly pursued by Kroger and Albertsons — two supermarket giants that themselves are spawns of multiple mergers, having consolidated dozens of previously independent competitors like Safeway, Ralphs, Vons and Randalls. Thousands of employees were punted, hundreds of stores closed ... and grocery prices soared. Yet the two remaining giants now want anti-monopoly regulators to believe in a “magic math” theory that subtracting competitors adds competition.

Bear in mind that neither chain is on the skids — both are making billions in profits, their CEO pay is astronomical, and investors are reaping fat dividends. But too much is not enough, and mergers are a profiteering freeway that paves its way to a bonanza of monopoly pricing. And that’s why these two are frantic to cozy up, having already paid nearly a billion dollars in fees to lawyers, bankers, lobbyists and PR agents to consummate their merger.

Oh, there’s one more crude incentive that stimulates these corporate trysts: Executives quietly pocket merger payments if their deals go through. Albertsons’ CEO, for example, is set to receive $43 million for merging with Kroger.

Holy Donald Trump! An Oklahoma Bible Story

As schoolkids learn in civics class, our government is made up of three separate branches. Your church is not one of them.

Unless you live in Oklahoma.

There, a fanatical Christian nationalist named Ryan Walters is the appointed superintendent of schools. But he’s confused on the concept of “instruction,” viewing it not as teaching but as a commandment to implement his own personal theology.

In June, he pompously instructed all public schools to put the Christian Bible in every classroom and to use them for teaching every subject. He’s also demanding millions of dollars from taxpayers to buy Bibles.

But not just any Bible. In October, Walters went from kooky to corrupt, issuing bid requirements that effectively narrowed the state’s purchase to one particular edition of Christianity’s Holy Word — the “God Bless the USA Bible.” It’s a MAGA-approved compilation promoting the dogma that America is meant to be governed by Christians. Marketed by right-wing country musician Lee Greenwood, the volume is being hawked in commercials by presidential flimflammer Donald Trump, who is avidly supported by Walters.

Oh, coincidentally, it turns out that Trump gets a cut of every one of Greenwood’s sales. So, a chunk of Oklahoma’s big Bible purchase would be pocketed by The Donald, enriching the most unholy president in history with manna from above.

The stench of this scam was even too much for Oklahoma’s aggressively partisan GOP leaders, who’ve now rewritten Walters’ purchase order to eliminate the Trump bid-rigging bias. Still, regular citizens are asking why the hell their state is trying to indoctrinate schoolkids, putting one religion above all others. To follow this Bible Story, connect with the nonprofit news group Oklahoma Watch: OklahomaWatch.org.

To Fight Right-Wing Book Bans, Read Banned Books!

In high school, my friend Charlie and I once poked into an abandoned Victorian house in our hometown. Up in the attic, we found a secret door to a space containing several boxes of books.

One held 50 copies of “The Age of Reason,” Thomas Paine’s treatise ridiculing the myths of Christian theology and the Bible. Hot, forbidden stuff! In Paine’s day, the book had been widely banned. Charlie and I each took a copy to read, found Paine’s thoughts mind-opening, and then did something that would be dangerous today: We gave the box of books to our town’s library for public distribution.

Amazingly, no one’s head exploded, and no gaggle of fanatics demanded that our town’s librarian be fired. The library just quietly and gladly received the books.

Today, though, a few right-wing extremist groups roam our country, trying to foment panic over books that critique everything from Christian nationalism to the corporate order, as well as books written by or about women, people fighting racism, or the LGBTQ community. Such maniacal book bans nearly tripled in the last school year, taking some 10,000 titles off school bookshelves.

But these ideological pecksniffs now face blowback from a growing “freedom to read” movement, with gutsy local activists defying the screeching, self-appointed censors in communities across America. Especially impressive are young people themselves who’re attending local library and school board meetings, telling officials they will not obey political dictates on what not to read or believe. They’ve even launched a movement urging people to “Read Banned Books.”

This is Jim Hightower saying ... To join the grassroots “freedom to read” rebellion, go to the American Library Association: ala.org.

Isn’t It Odd that Public Officials Support Corporate Price Gouging?

Corporate lobbyists and politicians recently jumped all over Vice President Kamala Harris for her proposal to outlaw price gouging by food giants and grocery chains.

The partisans piled on Harris, sputtering like old Joe McCarthy that she was pushing “Soviet-style” government price-setting. Of course, these latter-day McCarthyites were either lying, ignorant or both. Far from promoting price-setting, Harris was blasting price gouging. Big difference.

The ugly truth is that most public officials have quietly been pro-gouging for decades. By refusing to enforce antitrust laws, they’ve helped conglomerated food giants steadily amass monopoly power over the production, processing and marketing of food in nearly every American community. Big brand names then use that brute force to crush independent competitors, cheat customers and consolidate even more power for themselves.

That is illegal. We have national laws, like the 1936 Robinson-Patman Act, that prohibit corporations from rigging the rules to control markets and rip off consumers. But, since unlimited corporate campaign donations have flooded into our elections, monopolists have essentially bought off officials in both parties who now ignore antitrust laws, rebranding such market thuggery as “free enterprise” efficiency.

Thus, local and state governments routinely hand out millions of our tax dollars to subsidize big-name supermarket chains, meatpacking factories, dollar stores and other giants — all in the name of “consumers” and “competition.” No one mentions that these public giveaways provide the monopolistic market clout that allows the national outfits to clobber independent businesses, shrivel local competition and — voila — gouge consumers.

This is Jim Hightower saying ... Harris is right to call out grocery gouging and push stronger actions to stop it, but action No. 1 is to enforce the antimonopoly laws already on the books.

Jim Hightower is a former Texas Observer editor, former Texas agriculture commissioner, radio commentator and populist sparkplug, a best-selling author and winner of the Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship. Write him at info@jimhightower.com or see www.jimhightower.com.

From The Progressive Populist, November 15, 2024


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