Posts tagged as Capitalism
Dick Joke
Oh dear, here we go again: “Wall Street is a meritocracy, for the most part,” an irate but of course unnamed onetime Citigroup executive confides to junior father confessor Gabriel Sherman in this week’s hallucinatory New York magazine cover story, “The Emasculation of Wall Street.” “If someone has a bonus, it’s because they’ve created value for their institution.” READ MORE
252 Things Our Readers Bought on Amazon This Year
As an Amazon affiliate, we get a wee percentage of sales from people who click through from our site to Amazon. But better than that, we get a report from Amazon about what people have purchased! (Don't worry, it's all anonymous: there's no information at all passed on about the purchaser's identity.) One thing we can guarantee: you people buy things online. Here are just a few excerpts from the year 2011, here with quantity, title, media and cost. READ MORE
Let's Just Call it a Protest Movement
What did you do this weekend? Were you among the couple of thousand people protesting Bank of America in Boston? If so, YOU ARE AWESOME. (Although I have no idea why the Boston Herald referred to the 24 arrested at that protest as a "rogue's gallery." Isn't that... odd?) Bank of America should have people protesting outside every branch, every day. Also apparently there were some other protests, in New York, I guess? It only made page A18 of the Sunday New York Times national edition, where it said that only 500 people were arrested, not 700, so, must not have been that big a deal. (To be fair, they've been covering it well online.) Meanwhile, a word to the NYPD? Arresting working reporters and photographers is a real sad tactic. Also! Would you like a sense of how this is playing overseas? REAL BIG. Now the real fun begins.
England Forced to Notice Young, Poor, Angry People
And now we enter phase three of massive social unrest, in which the media wonders: who are "the looters" and why might they be "upset"? Literally: "The crowds involved in violence and looting are drawn from a complex mix of social and racial backgrounds." Oh I see. And: "Two girls who took part in Monday night's riots in Croydon have boasted that they were showing police and 'the rich' that 'we can do what we want.'" Why didn't anyone tell the media before that England was populated with a huge resentful underclass? WHY WAS THERE NOT A PRESS RELEASE ABOUT THIS?
Actually Big Government, Foreign Intervention and Charity Saved the Miners
Daniel Henninger'sWall Street Journal op-ed column today is mind-boggling. He comes out hard, so it's easy to summarize: "It needs to be said. The rescue of the Chilean miners is a smashing victory for free-market capitalism." His point is that the drill and the drill rig used for the miner rescue were developed by two smallish companies, right here in America. Other bits of technology were also created by companies! The free market innovates! Companies make things! So capitalism saved miners. Pretty much everything about this column is utterly undone by the facts. READ MORE
Local Newspaper Struggles With Its 'Real Housewives' Crack Habit
Once you know that the reality TV "star" "phenomenon" is merely a set of nonsense network-packaged narratives, stories and characters deployed to capitalize on the news outlets that need "information" to sell their own products, particularly when those news outlets don't care that the information they present is actually the product being sold itself, and that the whole thing is a business ploy wherein publicity is made through various entities using other entities in a cash-funded reputation market, well then there's no point in treating reality TV as a cultural product. Sorry, Hank Stuever! You're right about reality TV, but you're just feeding the beast. Particularly since your Washington Post newspaper is running a "preview" of the "latest installment" of Real Housewives alongside your criticism. Reality television is only a capitalist product-a great one, in those terms, as it lends itself to multiple repackaging and distribution. (See also: "LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY"!) But the only way out is all the way out. We know for a fact that you can sell newspapers another way.
Americans Less Fond Of Capitalism When It Actually Happens To Them
"We need to do a better job of explaining the economic system in the United States and how it is working. We have been looking at anecdotal information that there was a misunderstanding of capitalism." READ MORE
The Original "The Awl," 1843: "Who Owns These Neat and Pretty Houses?"
It has been brought to our attention that there is another publication called The Awl! Unfortunately, it seems to have ceased publication sometime in the mid to late 1840s, even though it was only first published in 1843. Documented in Norman Ware's fantastic The Industrial Worker, 1840-1860: the reaction of American industrial society to the advance of the industrial revolution, which was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1924. This bit of history was brought to our attention by the widely-read Aaaron Swartz, praise his name. Let's do some reading! READ MORE
"In a properly functioning capitalist economy, rich people don't 'create jobs' for workers; workers, upon having jobs, create rich people."
This is a fantastic read from Baltimore City Paper, on the "fact" that Maryland's number of millionaires dropped to 4,910 in 2008 from 7,067 in 2007. It includes a basic primer on how business works, which is so delightful we must excerpt it here. READ MORE
Chris Anderson's Third Big Idea: "Atoms & Bits"
Perhaps you were wondering what Wired editor Chris Anderson is up to, after putting forward ideas called "The Long Tail" and "Free"? Well, now we know! His new idea is called "Atoms & Bits." He will be giving it away... for free. (Oh and a book deal. And some speaking gigs. Whatever.) But what is "Atoms & Bits," besides a good name for a futuristic dog food brand? You can find out at a breakfast coming soon! READ MORE
