Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America
- Book Review,
by Arianna Huffington
Amazon.com
Arianna Huffington, popular pundit, columnist, and author, is not known for her polite criticisms or her carefully worded complaints. In the course of Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America, the corporate CEOs, accountants, politicians, and lobbyists at who she takes aim receive little relief from their porcine characterization first intimated in the book's title. And while she is full of invective for Enron's Kenneth Lay, Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski, Dick Cheney, and others, she backs up her outrage with dollar figures, dates, names, and specific information. The voluminous research is made more digestible by Huffington's direct and often amusing writing style (she characterizes a CEO's process of getting a loan approved by a corporate board as being akin to Tony Soprano getting a loan from Paulie Walnuts). Interspersed between chapters are entertainingly informative sidebars, including quizzes on executives' avarice and games where you match the CEO to his yacht. Occasionally, Huffington's anger gets mired in name-calling, which deflates her points. And while she spends ample time and space outlining the particulars of a flawed power structure, she dedicates little time to offering practical solutions toward remedying the problems. But Huffington is not trying to write a political science textbook or a party platform. As a highly readable indictment of corporate and governmental excess, Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America is highly successful. --John Moe
From Publishers Weekly
Nationally syndicated columnist Huffington's greatest dilemma while writing this scathing indictment of the corporate and political culture that brought the "new economy" '90s crashing down must have been how to choose among the plethora of examples of greed, corruption, hypocrisy and political manipulation. So unsavory are the CEO villains, so unfathomable is their greed and monstrously callous is their disregard for the thousands of employees who lost jobs and savings because of them, that even the most worldly activist and most cynical political observers will be shocked by what they read here. And Huffington's indictment of the corporate culture of greed, one that she believes undermines democracy, goes far beyond the high-flying corporate figures featured in congressional investigations. Among her accusations are that U.S. drug companies allowed the African AIDS epidemic to rage in the interests of corporate profits, and that President Bush is a conspirator in the corporate disregard of the interests of the American public. This is a powerful book, brimming with wit and sulphurous satire that connects the dots among politicians, lobbyists and corporations, and demonstrates their destructive effect on the well-being of average Americans. She may well be on her way to achieving her goal of convincing readers "to join forces to storm the control room of the S.S. America."Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From AudioFile
The female answer to Michael Moore, Huffington intelligently and mercilessly takes the robber barons of today's business and political worlds to task. Her sarcastic humor is delivered perfectly, complete with poisoned barbs, by reader Alison Fraser. We miss none of Huffington's outrage and disgust with those who gut corporations' mutual funds for their own overblown desires--leaving average Americans holding an empty moneybag--as Fraser enumerates their seemingly endless crimes and excesses. Listeners will walk away convinced that we live in the most profligate era yet, with Huffington as one of its most vocal critics. D.J.B. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From Booklist
Huffington, political commentator and columnist, provides a scathing indictment of corporate America's CEOs, the current president and vice-president, Democrats and Republicans, lobbyists, accountants, and other powerful entities that she holds responsible for "the lunatic excesses and the frenzy of fraud perpetrated by our high-flying corporate chieftains [that] have left our 401(k)s and pension plans in ruins and 8.3 million people out of work." The author details the legal and ethical debacles at companies such as Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco that have undermined the well-being of our society, and she blames not only the CEOs but the unprecedented collusion between corporate interests and politicians. Offering familiar solutions such as treating stock options as expenses, making it illegal for Wall Street firms to link research analysts and investment bankers, banning accountants from offering consulting services, and instituting real pension reform, the author wants readers to get involved and effect change. Cleverly written with stories and tests, this book exposes corporate malfeasance and the system that Huffington believes supports it. Mary Whaley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
“With a passion for the truth and an eye for detail, Arianna Huffington reports on the hijacking of democracy. Read it and weep—then head for the barricades. We have work to do.”—Bill Moyers
“A rousing call to action against special interests that have all too often triumphed over the national interest. As only she can, Arianna Huffington breathes energy and passion into the reform agenda. A withering, breathtaking, quintessentially controversial book that will inspire, inflame, and educate.”—Senator John McCain
“Arianna Huffington has always been willing to speak and write with conviction about the world around her. Her sharp wit and thoughtful commentary help put issues
on the agenda ignored by conventional thinkers. I’m certain, that with her powerful new book, Arianna Huffington will be stirring the waters for some time to come.”
—Senator John Kerry
“Arianna Huffington’s project in this wonderfully scathing, wonderfully researched, wonderfully readable book is to rescue capitalism from the CEOs. Every player in the recent go-go market owes it to himself or herself to read Pigs at the Trough and agitate for the reforms that might yet save the system. ”—Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
“Pigs at the Trough is a great read, hilarious and horrifying. Arianna Huffington is a world-class wit who makes a Fortune 500 trip to the woodshed seem like flirting.”
—Aaron Sorkin
“Arianna Huffington has written the most entertaining tour guide to hell since Virgil led Dante through the Inferno. Crooked CEOs beware!”—BILL MAHER
From the Hardcover edition.
Review
?With a passion for the truth and an eye for detail, Arianna Huffington reports on the hijacking of democracy. Read it and weep?then head for the barricades. We have work to do.??Bill Moyers
?A rousing call to action against special interests that have all too often triumphed over the national interest. As only she can, Arianna Huffington breathes energy and passion into the reform agenda. A withering, breathtaking, quintessentially controversial book that will inspire, inflame, and educate.??Senator John McCain
?Arianna Huffington has always been willing to speak and write with conviction about the world around her. Her sharp wit and thoughtful commentary help put issues
on the agenda ignored by conventional thinkers. I?m certain, that with her powerful new book, Arianna Huffington will be stirring the waters for some time to come.?
?Senator John Kerry
?Arianna Huffington?s project in this wonderfully scathing, wonderfully researched, wonderfully readable book is to rescue capitalism from the CEOs. Every player in the recent go-go market owes it to himself or herself to read Pigs at the Trough and agitate for the reforms that might yet save the system. ??Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
?Pigs at the Trough is a great read, hilarious and horrifying. Arianna Huffington is a world-class wit who makes a Fortune 500 trip to the woodshed seem like flirting.?
?Aaron Sorkin
?Arianna Huffington has written the most entertaining tour guide to hell since Virgil led Dante through the Inferno. Crooked CEOs beware!??BILL MAHER
From the Hardcover edition.
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