Taylorism
BEZOS' COLD, MICROMANAGED, time-motion approach to the workplace is a direct descendant (and extreme extension) of a theory of "scientific management" developed in the 1880's by Frederick Winslow Taylor, an ind... Read more...
The birth of Amazon
LEGEND HAS IT that Amazon is a classic story of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. In 1994, a bright, young fellow named Bezos heads off to the Seattle suburb of Bellevue, with nothing going for him bu... Read more...
Do elites really think they can knock us down without provoking us to stand up and push back?
Feisty, creative coalitions are standing up to the corporate order
While taking in the splendor of the Grand Palace in Bangkok, a tourist came across a monk and asked if he could snap a photo of him. The mon... Read more...
America isn’t broke. There’s plenty of money to build an economy worthy of our ideals and can-do spirit
A simple "Financial Transaction Tax" could fund opportunities for all
Several pro football franchises have chosen chest-pounding team names meant to symbolize how big, powerful, ferocious, and scary they are... Read more...
Brand name riggers of the justice system
Practically every national brand name you've ever heard of now slips predatory arbitration provisions into their customer terms-of-service agreements and/or employment agreements. Not only do these sneaky inser... Read more...
A third way
You don't hear much about it, but there is another path to justice for some consumers who've been wronged by a corporation: Small claims courts.
These are relatively simple, inexpensive, and quick do-it-your... Read more...
Corporate kangaroo courts have quietly usurped our constitutional right to trial by judge and jury
Arbitration sounds fair, but forced arbitration is the exact opposite
Being wronged by a corporation is painful enough, but getting your day in court is no picnic either. Aside from having to go up a... Read more...
The boss man gets bossier
CITIZENS UNITED not only unleashed the Big Dogs of corporate money in this election, but it also unleashed mad-dog corporate bosses to tell employees how to vote. Prior to that Court ruling, corporate funds cou... Read more...
What 8 years of BushCheney have done to our economy
Harry Truman said, "No man should be allowed to be president who doesn't understand hogs." That's never been more true than it will be for the man or woman who walks into the White House on January 20, 2009.
... Read more...
Corporations that paid-to-play in the last election
The Logo Lowdown, part 2
FROM THE "LAND OF THE CLUELESS AND CONNIVING," meet a couple of gentlemen who insist that America's political funding system is working splendidly. They report that there's a... Read more...
Why Wal-Mart is still one down and dirty corporation
Workers get snappy new uniforms, and have to pay for them
“You can’t create a team spirit when the situation is so one-sided, when management gets so much and workers get so little of the pie.” — SAM... Read more...
Our oldest mountains are being blown away
In the name of profits for King Coal
Many of you Lowdowners have told me that you often share the newsletter with your teenagers—and even younger children. Therefore, for proper parental guidance, I ... Read more...
NAFTA gives the shafta to North America’s farmers
What the media won't tell you about globaloney
Last April at the presidential Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, our very own George W. Bush attempted to articulate his belief that all of the w... Read more...
Wall street is out to conquer 31 countries
The FTAA is NAFTA on steroids
Open wide . . . here comes another great big glob of globaloney that the Powers That Be want to shove down your throat. They forced us to swallow NAFTA, the WTO, and NAF... Read more...
Our privacy rights are being sold, stolen and stripped
Almost all our personal "data" is being marketed
To get a job these days, chances are you'll have to pee in a bottle. Your intimate medical history can be laid out in front of just about anyone willi... Read more...
How we won the war
By Boeing, Northop Grumman, Raytheon and their happy shareholders
A truck stop in Tulsa has a sign that proclaims: "Kids with gas eat free." Well, kids, Im getting gas from all the baloney we're ei... Read more...
The new racketeers
Dressed up in their designer suits, they trade in human cargo
Let's pull the curtain and look at a police line-up of some of the most thuggish members of organized crime in America today. They don'... Read more...
There’s a plan for one world government
but it's not guys in black helicopters, it's GLOBAL CORPORATIONS
Last year in Paris a bunch of guys in suits met secretly to draft a document they called 'the constitution of a single global economy.... Read more...