Jim Hightower Quotes
Rather than graciously accommodating your need and making you a satisfied customer, the pick your pocket .... Airlines pocketed nearly $3 billion last year from fees they charged passengers who needed to alter their flights.... By dividing up the market, colluding on fares and fees and effectively bribing Congress [with "campaign donations", airlines hauled off a record $33 billion in profits last year—–an increase of nearly 90 percent over the previous year.
[These new "extra fees" for baggage, schedule changes, getting a good seat, etc are a new in the industry where most of the few airlines would rather match the fares and fees of the rest, rather than compete and get a larger market share. Interestingly, the best run and most profitable airline, Southwest, does not charge most of these new fees. Also, the airlines business has over the years not been very profitable. The nature of the industry makes it difficult for most airlines to make steady profits year after year, so many tend to be hogs and take advantage of consumers whenever they had the opportunity.]
"Vox Populist: Bring on the Bunnies", The Progressive, May 2016
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Railroads and other large markets shared dominated by a few large corporations.
Most businesses attempt to gain monopolistic positions and avoid price and other competition as much as possible. See {633636} .
While this statement seems totally absurd to us today, at the time most politicians and judges believed it. Only the left wingers and the populists opposed the doctrine as well as most business owners who knew the truth but of course most preferred the have their own monopoly. One of the reasons the large American corporations did not want Jewish and Chinese immigrants is that those cultures supported highly competitive businesses and might give consumers a better deal or worse, their culture would argue for less monopoly and more competition. For more than half a century AT&T was given a monopoly over almost all telephone service in the United States. Finally the Federal Courts saw through the company propaganda, and ordered AT&T broken up. The “Baby Bells” have persuaded most state legislatures and regulatory bodies of this same argument, and almost every community of the United States has a monopoly on local wired local telephone service. The same is true about water and electricity and a great deal of American transportation. Every major company strives for as much of a monopolistic position the government will allow; some are overt like the electrical companies. Others are more subtle and use copyright and patents to be sure that there is no price or service competition. Fortunately, the high tech industry is to technologically competitive that prices have been have been going down constantly not like telephone and Internet connectivity, entertainment, education, and professional services.
This volume roughly is to Islam what the Gospels are to Christianity. To most Muslims The Sunnah is a collection of holy material on the life of Mohammed. It is not of the force or importance as the Koran, but it is revered.
Draft language is sometimes attributed to Senator George F. Hoar.
The low rates not available to farmers and ranchers forced them to sell cattle to the trusts—Swift and other meatpackers.
This Hadith together with the Prophet’s probation on interest appears to preclude a capitalistic economic structure. However, Muslim institutions have been very creative in interpreting these admonitions. Some Muslims give this a modern interpretation which prohibits price gouging but not fair profit. Regardless, it has always been interpreted to apply only to business transactions between Muslims. Profit can be made on trading and commerce with non-Muslims, and Muslim traders have always spanned the globe.
Lock’s view differs from modern American business ethics and law. He argues that regardless of circumstances a merchant may charge anything and that all consumers must be treated equally, which would eliminate preferred customers or even automobile sales practices where prices are negotiated for most vehicles. See {616334} to see how he deals with necessities of life: as issues of charity—not economics.
James Allen Hightower is an American syndicated columnist, progressive political activist, and author. From 1983 to 1991 he served as the elected commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture.
