The Hightower Lowdown

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Pardon Me?

'Tis the season when visions of sugar plums have been dancing in the heads of children, and little Michael Milken has been envisioning a very sweet plum indeed! Except, Michael is not really little at all. In fact, he's big. Very big. So big that in the 1980s, he was the Junk Bond King of the whole world, using his powerhouse position at the Wall Street firm of Drexel Burnham to finance hostile corporate takeovers that cost tens of thousands of workers their jobs and wrecked several corporations. Oh, he also defrauded many small investors, costing them their family nest eggs. This is illegal, and in 1990, Michael pled guilty to six counts of securities fraud. As a result, he spent two years in prison, paid a billion bucks in fines, and was barred from the securities business for life.

Despite this unpleasantness, Michael held onto a ton of his loot, and now he's using it to try to buy redemption. He wants Bill Clinton to give him a sugar plum of a presidential pardon, and he's been orchestrating a well-financed PR and lobbying campaign to win presidential exoneration of his assorted sins of greed. Aiding him is Ron Burkle, a California supermarket baron who amassed his vast empire by taking over various grocery chains -- takeovers financed by -- guess who -- Michael Milken! Burkle has since become a special buddy of Bill Clinton, having been one of the president's top campaign contributors, and recently having pledged to make a major donation to build Clinton's $135 million presidential library. Burkle, ever grateful for Milken's junk-bond financing, has appealed directly to his buddy Bill to give Michael a pardon.

How cozy: a rich guy who was made even richer by a convicted felon using some of his riches to buy a friendship with the president -- then using the friendship to swing a pardon for the felon. Money talks -- not only in politics, but also in pardons.

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Corporate Spooks

What's a spook to do? The cold war is over, the Russkies are now our buddies, the Butchers of Beijing have become our business partners -- so where's a spy to go to get a job? Motorola might be hiring. The Wall Street Journal reports that Motorola Inc. has a substantial spy shop, with "units sprinkled in almost all of their outposts around the world." Indeed, it seems that just about every major U.S. corporation now employs spooks to go into the global cold and spy on their competitors, on foreign governments, and -- well, who knows who else they're spying on? Actually, the term "spying" is too déclassé for the pinstriped corporate crowd. "Competitive intelligence" is the preferred designation, or, as one corporate snoop calls his espionage activities: "specialized management consulting."

This is not some rogue basement operation either -- it goes right to the top of the company. The Journal notes that Motorola's clandestine network, created and headed by a former CIA operative, is central to executive suite decisions, with the spooks sitting in on most corporate strategy sessions. "The concept was to mirror the interaction between the CIA and the White House," says the agent who set up Motorola's shop.

There are enough of these corporate 007s that they've even established their own trade association, with nearly 7,000 members. The corporate spies use all sorts of sophisticated, new software to do their espionage, but there's plenty of old-fashioned spy stuff, too -- from paying informants to rummaging through a competitors' trash. Even the CIA winces at some of the practices of the private-sector spooks -- as one agent put it: "In corporate America, the definition of what's ethical is what's legal." And they've even got corporate lawyers to help them define "legal" as "whatever needs to be done."

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Doggie Style

We all came together this month in the one act that binds us all together in this republic: buying a bunch of stuff. So, you're through shopping. But wait: What about your ferret? Your dog? Your horse?

As a consumer service, I'm here to guide you through the wonderful world of online pet shopping. Yahoo! Internet Life recently offered a full line of holiday pet pleasers for your shopping pleasure. Let's start with that ferret. Do you dress up your little furry rodent, as a lot of people apparently do? If so, TheFerretStore.com claims to have the "largest selection of ferret supplies on the planet," including such dress-up outfits as a tuxedo shirt, a sailor hat, a Santa suit, and even a ferret biker jacket. Perhaps you've suffered a ferret death recently. Not to worry, the store also has a ferret figurine cremation urn for you -- only $125.

Dogs? For pooches of privilege, Kleinbergsherrill.com sells a swell American alligator dog collar for $250. (That's alligator skin.) Or, if you like to take your canine for rides, what could be finer that the adult-size tricycle, complete with a dog-sized rattan basket. It's yours for $610 from InTheCompanyOfDogs.com. If you've got a horsey attitude, there's a store for you, too. Go to StateLineTack.com to find Mrs. Pasture's Cookies for Horses, or the always adorable license plate holder that declares "My other car is a horse." The holiday season might be ending, but you are urged to shop 'til you drop -- Wall Street's counting on you.

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Jim Hightower's latest book, If The Gods Had Meant Us to Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates, is available in stores everywhere.