Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America

266 Pages·2003·1.34 MB·English

by  Arianna Huffington

Praise for Pigs at the Trough
“Huffington yanks back the curtains on the ’90s ‘go-go market’ to reveal a portrait of
Dorian Greed…. wicked gallows humor … Democrats and Republicans sizzle like bacon
under her broilering spotlight. Scrupulous detail … real porcine heft.”
—Christian Science Monitor
“A rousing call to action. As only she can, Arianna breathes energy and passion into the
reform agenda. A withering, breath taking, quintessentially controversial book that will
inspire, in flame, and educate.”
—Senator John McCain
“Arianna Huffington makes an appealing and compelling argument for the repeal of
human nature—that part of it that indulges savage, unconscionable, and despicable
greed.”
—Walter Cronkite
“Even the most worldly activist and most cynical political observers will be shocked by
what they read here. A powerful book, brimming with wit and sulphurous satire.”
—Publishers Weekly
“With a passion for the truth and an eye for detail, Arianna Huffing ton reports on the
hijacking of democracy. Read it and weep—then head for the barricades. We have work
to do.”
—Bill Moyers
“Arianna Huffington has written the most entertaining tour guide to hell since Virgil led
Dante through the Inferno. Crooked CEOs beware!”
—Bill Maher
Also by Arianna Huffington
The Female Woman
After Reason
Maria Callas: The Woman Behind the Legend
The Gods of Greece
Picasso: Creator and Destroyer
The Fourth Instinct
Greetings from the Lincoln Bedroom
How to Overthrow the Government
On Becoming Fearless … in Love, Work, and Life
Fanatics & Fools
Right Is Wrong

For Isabella,
my youngest daughter,
with much love
Acknowledgments
WRITING THIS BOOK was a juggling act—keeping the big themes clear
while tracking all the startling details unfolding every day on the front
pages of our newspapers. Keeping ahead of this moving target could not
have been done without a great team. Deep thanks go to Billy Kimball,
who was shuttling back and forth between L.A. and Long Island, and to
Peter Abbott, who landed here for a year from Cambridge, our shared
alma mater in England, and went back the day after the book went to
press. I hope that his decision to return to Cambridge to do a Ph.D. on
the use of “terror” in Greek and Shakespearean tragedy was not entirely
the result of researching the “pigs.” Additional thanks to Chris Kyle,
Moira Brennan, Jon Hotchkiss, Roy Sekoff, Stephen Sherrill, Victor
Abalos, Leslie Borja, Mia Mazadiego, Prof. Christopher Gill, and to my
good friends Mary Arno, David Booth, Bob Borosage, Marc Cooper,
David Corn, Lynda Obst, and Lynn Sweet, who read the manuscript at
different stages and greatly improved it.
Many thanks also to my anonymous sources, both at the top of the
corporate world and among the recently downsized who provided
fascinating leads and key details. Like Deep Throat, my inside sources
reminded me to “follow the money.” I can’t name them but my thanks
go to them all the same. I can name, however, Steven Weiss, Scott
Klinger, Russell Mokhiber, Robert Weissman, and Micah Sifry.
All my gratitude to my amazing editor, Emily Loose, whose outrage at
the pigs never flagged, even after her fourth masterly editorial pass on
the same text; and to my incredible agent, Richard Pine, whose
involvement embraced every detail from the book’s contract to the
book’s content. To Steve Ross, who welcomed me back into the Crown
fold, Barbara Marks for the enthusiasm she brought to the book’s
promotion, and Caroline Sincerbeaux for all the many ways she helped
the pigs come to life. Many thanks also to Barbara Sturman for her work
in creating an attractive design for the book, to Amy Boorstein for her
expert management of the copyediting, and to Derek McNally for his
efforts to make this book come in on time.
The book is dedicated to my younger daughter, Isabella, who together
with her older sister, Christina, provided constant joyous interruptions.
P.S. My thanks and gratitude go to Whitney Snyder, Nour Akkad, and
Roy Sekoff, as well as my editor at Three Rivers Press, Sean Desmond,
for all their help with Pigs at the Trough circa 2009.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface to the 2009 Edition
INTRODUCTION
Twilight of the Corporate Gods
PIGS ON PARADE
Power, Perks, and Impunity
THE BLOODLESS COUP
The Corporate Takeover of Our Democracy
THE ENABLERS
A Conspiracy of Thousands
THE BINGE AND THE RECKONING
The Chickens Come Home to Roost
Epilogue
Afterword to the 2009 Edition
Preface to the 2009 Edition
HEN I WAS ASKED to reissue Pigs at the Trough in the midst of our
W
current economic crisis, I sat down to reread it and was stunned by
how much of what the book speaks to has brought us to our knees in
2009.
Sure, the characters are different, the accounting gimmicks have
different names, the sophistication that allows the gimmicks to take
place within the law is greatly enhanced, and the numbers have gone
from mere billions to hundreds of billions and trillions. So, different
pigs, deeper trough, worse result—but, other than that, the narrative is
unchanged: CEOs and others at the top of the corporate ladder engaging
in rampant—though often legal—corruption to improve the bottom line
and line their own pockets until finally they fall prey to their greed and
self-indulgence … only to find themselves routinely protected from the
retribution of their beloved “free market” by their companies, their peers
—and, ultimately, by the government.
“So the stomach-turning revelations of corruption that have come to
light,” I wrote in the book in 2003, “are surely only the appetizer for a
far larger banquet of sleazy scandals.” Little did I know at the time just
how much larger the banquet of scandals would end up being. It turned
into an all-they-could-eat buffet.
The corporate crooks of WorldCom, Tyco, Global Crossing, Adelphia,
Enron, and others profiled in this book were largely playing with
shareholders’ money (small comfort to the thousands who saw their nest
eggs scrambled by the likes of Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and Bernie Ebbers).
The new villains are playing with taxpayer money, trillions of it. During
the French revolution, Marie Antoinette and her “let them eat cake”
attitude became the symbol of not getting it. And just like Marie
Antoinette, John Thain, the former Merrill Lynch CEO, didn’t get it even
while being led to the corporate guillotine. Though Merrill Lynch was
hemorrhaging money and preparing to lay off thousands of workers,
Thain, reaching new heights of tone deafness, spent $1.2 million