Finally, someone has realized how to use the power of the web to expose the deep power of GOP economic thinking to the masses on the web. Pop over to the GOP Problem Solver to find out how to solve all your problems. (The second stage joke actually made me laugh out loud.)
Tag: economics
SF Authors Say Smart Things: KSR on climate & social justice
Does the word postcapitalism look odd to you? It should, because you hardly ever see it. We have a blank spot in our vision of the future. Perhaps we think that history has somehow gone away. In fact, history is with us now more than ever, because we are at a crux in the human story. That’s from the conclusion… Read more →
Observational Items
I believe that it is not hyperbole to say that the existence, even in conceptual form, of the Chompr is the final clear sign that Western society has slipped completely into decadence. First of all, if you can’t hold a sandwich in your hand, you shouldn’t be trying to eat it. Second of all, you should be able to engineer… Read more →
Aside
Despite making a pretty decent living these days, some things still regularly flash me back to my less-well-off upbringing and set me off on a class warrior rant. One of these is conspicuous consumption in the form of ridiculously expensive items which have no intrinsic worth, but are made pricey for no purpose other than to display wealth ostentatiously. Like diamond-studded memory sticks. (Christ, if you’re going to consume conspicuously, buy something that is expensive for a reason, not just made expensive as a way to show off your score, he said with a straight face.)
Noted Quotes
A couple of quotations from my web reading recently: “I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, waterboarding is torture.” –U.S. Attorney General nominee Eric Holder (via) “Watch half a film. Ring someone up, ask them about their dreams. Make your life as patchy a discourse as possible.” —M. John Harrison, explaining something about writing “If only it were all so simple!… Read more →
Closing the book-related tabs
And here we go again… I’ve been reading Jeff’s daily reviews of the books in the Penguin Great Ideas series. While I don’t think I’m interested in trying to read all sixty of them in sixty days (despite Jeff’s examples and the exhortation of the Harvard University Press) I am very impressed with the presentation of the volumes, and have… Read more →
Artist & Savvy Businessman
As I write this I’m downloading five new tracks by my oft-mentioned-here pal Danny Michel. It appears that just before Christmas Danny made a deal to get digital rights to his back catalogue back from the label in exchange for giving them the rights to retail physical copies of his new indie CD. At least that’s what I get out… Read more →
…as long as it catches the mouse
If you look at every one of these [derivative] products, they make sense. But in aggregate, they are bullshit. They are crap. They serve to cheat people. I have to say it: you have to do something about pay in the financial system. People in this field have way too much money. And this is not right. It hurts to… Read more →
The natural reward of taking time to do anything well
“Demanding a significant investment of time and energy on the part of the consumer, it [the book] has always fit somewhat awkwardly into the world of mass entertainment.” You know, it seems like every one of these “end of publishing” articles has a couple of nuggets in it. Like Englehart’s noticing that the book is a much less easily consumed… Read more →
We are not beginners, we will not be fooled
“Books are not Hollywood, to the general astonishment of agents and corporate suits. They are intimate, unpredictable agents of delicious rebellion.” I’m not sure I buy the thesis in Osborne’s piece, but I really would like the believe I live in the world that this quote from it describes. Read more →
Aside
From Canada To Wal*Mart: You’ll Take Your Unions, and You’ll Like It.
Aside
So, if someone told me I would enjoy reading a short fiction piece entitled Talking To God, I would be skeptical. If they told me it was found on a site entitled “The Ragged Trousered Philosopher“, I might be more inclined to believe them. And I would have been right to do so. Good piece. And I intend to explore the site more fully. (And, to look into the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists as well–the snippets of that at the site, about the Causes of Poverty, are quite interesting.)
This might be a naive question, but…
You know all the noise from the right about Obama’s plan to make US income tax more progressive? (Which, sanity forces me to note, amounts to “return them to Clinton era levels”.) In the midst of all the arguments about who should be paying what share of the costs, why is there no big loud discussion about corporate tax rates?… Read more →
I can not afford some Art.
I have survived the day of endless meetings. As soon as the last evening meeting ended, I hauled ass down the road to the bookstore to unwind with some browsing before it closed. I made some weird purchases that I suspect I might not have made if I weren’t dazed and confused from the meeting marathon. Case in point: I’m… Read more →
A Linkpost Before Sleeping
I think I’m going to soon look at setting up the site with “asides”, so that instead of gathering up large buckets of links that I have only a few comments on, I can just drop them in as “asides” between my longer and more content-y posts. In the meantime, another (possibly final) agglomeration of miscellaneous links. This might be… Read more →
