Book: Pigs At The Trough
Written by Arianna Huffington (Crown)
Reviewed by Rusty Pipes

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Pigs At The Trough is a tell-all book, in that it tells you all about how deeply the mendacity and piracy of our current corporate culture goes.

It would be easy to toss off these stories of white collar crime as a minor problem in the world today, but Arianna Huffington makes a compelling case that these crimes have become the norm in America and the current Administration, including Congress, is in collusion with the criminals. It's about time we all woke up to the fact that "economic morality" is an idea whose time has come.

Huffington tracks the careers of many Pigs that have been in the news, such as Kenneth Lay (Enron), John Rigas (Adelphia) and Bernie Ebbers (WorldCom). She's probably on a list somewhere in John Ashcroft's office for unflinchingly illuminating the record of our current Vice President, Dick Cheney, too.

Arianna writes in an open breezy style and is not afraid to crack the occasional joke amid these sobering facts. Periodically she also provides interesting little quizzes that are intended to reinforce her message. To overcome the numbness created by such high numbers she even gives a sidebar with reference points, reality checks really that will bring your head down out of the clouds. For example Global Crossing, Qwest, Tyco, Worldcom and Enron lost some $427 BILLION in value combined. A figure so large is hard to comprehend until Arianna points out that that much money could fund the United Nations for 263 years and STILL you have $164 Billion left over for famine relief.

It's amazing how we vilify pretty criminals, sending them up for years for a joint or a bit of crack, yet we allow CEO's like this to cook the books and destroy the wealth of the shareholders. Worse they destroy the jobs and retirement savings of thousands of employees as they downsize to please Wall Street. Arianna is doing a great public service here by shining the light of publicity on these crooks and demanding action from our lawmakers and courts. Her mission in writing Pigs At The Trough is nothing less than making you mad enough to bring some sense back to our government.

Trust me, the Government does not want you to read this book, which should be reason enough to go buy it immediately. It will open your eyes.

© 2003 - Rusty Pipes