
The Sad Ballad of the Big Fool
May 14, 2026 - 2:10
Radio and PodcastLive Radio & Podcasts
Here they come again. Every couple of decades another infestation of smiling, winking, fast-talking, corporate hucksters descends on rural America. The scammers have varied from Big Oil’s notorious land men to peddlers o...
Billionaire Gangs Marauding Through Rural America is an episode from Jim Hightower's Radio Lowdown by Jim Hightower. Here they come again. Every couple of decades another infestation of smiling, winking, fast-talking, corporate hucksters de...
This episode belongs to Jim Hightower's Radio Lowdown.
Use the player on this page to stream the episode online.
Published Apr 9, 2026, 2:10 long, audio available.
Here they come again. Every couple of decades another infestation of smiling, winking, fast-talking, corporate hucksters descends on rural America. The scammers have varied from Big Oil’s notorious land men to peddlers of private prisons. But this one is the biggest, most important flimflam yet, with Silicon Valley billionaires and Wall Street speculators rushing through the countryside buying up vast tracts of land. Why? Because Amazon, Google, Meta, and dozens of other tech profiteers are converting their corporations into Artificial Intelligence robotic empires, and each AI facility is absolutely humongous, requiring airport-size swaths of land. Acreage is the least of it though, for the data centers consume Niagara Falls-levels of water. So local families, farms, factories, and businesses suddenly find their essential water supply being raided by faraway corporate water suckers. Also, local utility bills skyrocket as profiteers drain enormous amounts of electric power from the area’s grid. Worse, corporate lobbyists squeeze local officials to subsidize this thievery! For example, a private equity predator named Apollo Global Management recently fleeced a New York county for $1.4 billion in “job-creation” subsidies for a sprawling data center that will – get this – employ only 125 people. Yes, that’s $11 million per job – with actual workers only getting a pittance of it. You don’t need a big schnoz to smell this stink. The good news is that county officials across the country are beginning to say “NO” to AI’s money grab. Also, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have proposed a national moratorium on this corporate frenzy to impose an AI future that We the People do not want. For more information and action, go to foodandwaterwatch.org . Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/
You can listen to Billionaire Gangs Marauding Through Rural America online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.
Billionaire Gangs Marauding Through Rural America is an episode from Jim Hightower's Radio Lowdown by Jim Hightower.
This episode is 2:10 long.
This episode was published on Apr 9, 2026.
Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.
Yes. This page shows related episodes from Jim Hightower's Radio Lowdown when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.
You can listen to Billionaire Gangs Marauding Through Rural America on this page when the episode audio is available from the podcast feed.
Billionaire Gangs Marauding Through Rural America is from Jim Hightower's Radio Lowdown by Jim Hightower.
Published Apr 9, 2026 and 2:10 long