The Hightower Report

THE ECONOMIC TREPIDATIONS OF THE RICH

Time for another peek into the lifestyles of the rich and cranky.

The rich would like a little more respect from you hoi polloi. They are fatigued by all this news coverage about the economic travails of the hardworking middle class. First, the subprime mortgage collapse got all the headlines, with sob stories about low-income families losing their homes. Then came the hue and cry about the hardships caused by rising gasoline prices. And now even Republican presidential candidates are trying to "feel the pain" of working stiffs.

Puh-leeze. Do reporters think those people are the only ones suffering today? What about the pinch being felt by the rich? Do reporters not know about the downturn this past holiday season in luxury purchases at Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, and Tiffany & Co.? I tell you, it was an absolutely dreadful experience.

While the media moaned and groaned about the shopping slowdown at Target and other downscale stores, they expressed not a whit of concern about the sluggishness at Tiffany, for example. In the upscale suburbs of New York City, Tiffany stores had a 10% drop in sales! This renowned jeweler to the rich reports that sales were alarmingly soft on items like $10,000 pendants and brooches. If that's not a sign of suffering, then I don't know what is! Yet, all the clueless reporters rushed off to interview tacky Wal-Mart shoppers, as though their little purchases are going to sustain America's mighty economic machine.

The only good news for upscale marketers is that the superrich are still buying. Tiffany reports its sales of jewelry costing $50,000 and up continued to be strong, especially among Europeans, Asians, and Middle Eastern buyers who came here to shop, taking advantage of the weak American dollar.

Thank goodness for that, right?

MOLLY IVINS

We progressives, we Americans – and anyone, anywhere who loves liberty and justice – have lost a true, trusted friend. Molly Ivins died one year ago today (Thursday).

Yet, Molly was more than a person. She is a spirit – a big, boisterous, joyful, irreverent, hell-raising, fun-loving, muckraking, uninhibited, maverick spirit.

As such, she lives.

I first encountered her in 1970, when she exploded from the pages of The Texas Observer like a supernova. She was full of wit, smarts, and sass, grabbing readers by their hearts, minds, gonads, and funny bones. Damn, I thought, no human can write like that! She could knock you over and lift you up in the same sentence. It was her spirit coming at you.

For 40 years or so, Molly wrote, spoke, taught, and agitated all across America, rallying progressive souls with the expressive force of that spirit to stand a little taller, get a little noisier, help whack some pompous plutocrat or asinine autocrat right in the snout – then go have some beers and an uproarious laugh.

In my years of knowing her, I found her to have five passions: 1) good, solid, and brave investigative Journalism (with a capital "J"); 2) the Bill of Rights – I think she spoke at more American Civil Liberties Union meetings than any president of that organization; 3) progressive politics, aggressively populist, putting the corporate structure and the money powers right in our sights; 4) underdogs; and 5) the merry combination of good friends, good drink, and good fun (she orchestrated many a wild game of charades in her home, playing it as a full-body contact sport).

At my last dinner with her, Molly turned to me and said out of the side of her mouth, "This has been a hell of a ride." She meant the months of trying to stay atop the cancer bucking within her, but it also sums up her 62 years in this life. Molly came to us as a spirit, lived with us as such, and has now left us with that spirit. She did her part – and our happy task is to carry on the fiery, loving, laughing essence of Molly.