Bill Moyers | Buffalogeek
May 2 2010
By Jim Hightower | Nation Of Change
November 14 2011
OP-ED | How small can a giant corporation get? I don’t mean in size, but in spirit.
Once again, America’s biggest commercial empire — Walmart — is displaying its incredibly shriveled ethical center by whacking the already meager health care benefits that hundreds of thousands of its workers count on.
Just a couple of years ago, this $408 billion-a-year retailing colossus tried to hush critics of its Dickensian labor policies by ballyhooing a bare-bones health care plan for its “associates.” The insurance scheme had such high deductibles, however, that barely half of its employees bought into it.
Now, even that benefit is being yanked from the 40 percent of Walmart’s employees who are part-time workers. Also, insurance premiums and deductibles are being dramatically jacked up for thousands of full-time workers. For example, one full-timer who’s paid only $12,000 a year will see her premium more than double to about $3,300 a year — a fourth of her income! “I won’t be able to afford the insurance,” she says, “and I really can’t go without insurance, because I have a heart problem.”
By Jim Hightower | Nation Of Change
November 7 2011
Listening at last to his inner FDR, President Barack Obama is going straight at the Know-Nothing/Do-Nothing Republicans in Congress.
At a rally in September on a bridge connecting Rep. John Boehner’s state of Ohio to Sen. Mitch McConnell’s state of Kentucky, Obama challenged the two GOP leaders to back his plan for repairing and improving our country’s deteriorating infrastructure. “Help us rebuild this bridge,” he shouted out to Boehner and McConnell. “Help us rebuild America. Help us put this country back to work.”
Yes, let’s do it!
However, in addition to the usual recalcitrance of reactionary Republican leaders, another impediment stands in the way of success: many of the infrastructure jobs that would be created could end up in China.
Holy Uncle Sam! How is this possible?
It’s due to a trap door that was built into the Buy American Act. This 1933 law gives preference to U.S. companies bidding on major infrastructure projects. However, it allows the general contractor to opt out of this requirement if the difference in U.S. and foreign bids is significant. This is no theoretical concern, for it’s already happening.