Category Archives: world-wide economy

Daily briefings from the beast

Posted on April 4, 2020 by oddmanout215

Swamp Rabbit wore a surgical mask today when he went to the SuperFridge. To protect himself against Covid-19, he said, but I figured he just wanted to rob the joint without being identified. He brought ketchup and fish sticks back … Continue reading →

Posted in arts, economic collapse, history, humor, mainstream media, world-wide economy | Tagged blood on his hands, Boston Globe, daily briefings, Defense Production Act, Donald Trump, pandemic, rough beast, slouches toward Bethlehem, The Second Coming, W.B. Yeats | Leave a comment

‘Abundance without attachment’ is right-wing doubletalk

Posted on December 17, 2014 by oddmanout215

Swamp Rabbit and I huddled next to the wood stove and pored over a cheery Christmas article by economist Arthur C. Brooks, who wants people to make an attitude adjustment regarding possessions. He urges readers to “collect experiences, not things,” … Continue reading →

Posted in apocalypse, down and out, economic collapse, food, globalization, Great Recession, humor, liar, life in the big city, mainstream media, philosophy, unemployment, world-wide economy | Tagged abundance without attachment, American Enterprise Institute, Arthur C. Brooks, Billy Graham, Christmas, Dick Cheney, New York Times | 1 Comment

Damn lies and statistics in the NY Times

Posted on December 6, 2014 by oddmanout215

Swamp Rabbit and I were jawing about a NY Times report on the high unemployment rate in France. The story seemed to imply that those left-leaning Frenchies had turned their country into an economic basket case by not scrapping a … Continue reading →

Posted in economic collapse, Great Recession, health care, mainstream media, New York Times, The New Depression, unemployment, Wall Street, world-wide economy | Leave a comment

Obama to EU: Frack, baby, frack

Posted on March 29, 2014 by oddmanout215

From Common Dreams: Speaking after a meeting with European leaders at the [European Union]-US summit in Brussels on Wednesday, President Barack Obama suggested that the U.S. is open to exporting fracked shale gas, once promised as the source of American … Continue reading →

Posted in climate change, environmentalism, globalization, humor, Iraq war, Obama, world-wide economy | Tagged Crimea, European Union, fracked shale gas, fracking reserves, swamp rabbit, Ukraine | 3 Comments

Regarding Coca-Cola (corporate America’s rotgut)

Posted on February 12, 2014 by oddmanout215

I recently discussed with my friend Swamp Rabbit the sappy Coca-Cola commercial that features, as Guardian UK put it, “a multi-lingual rendition of ‘America the Beautiful’ sung by children and illustrated with a diversity of New Americana scenes…” The usual … Continue reading →

Posted in arts, campaign finance reform, Congress, down and out, globalization, humor, mainstream media, movies, Occupy Wall Street, plutocracy, The New Depression, world-wide economy | Tagged Coca-Cola, David Itzkoff, Howard Beale, Paddy Chayevsky, Super Bowl commercial, swamp rabbit | 4 Comments

Karl Marx gets a makeover

Posted on December 23, 2013 by oddmanout215

Just for a laugh, I read aloud from a Guardian UK article in which David Simon expressed qualified approval of some Marxist ideas. Sure enough, my friend Swamp Rabbit called me a commie before I was halfway through the piece. … Continue reading →

Posted in down and out, economic collapse, globalization, history, mainstream media, The New Depression, unemployment, world-wide economy | Tagged Capital, communism, David Simon, Joe Stalin, Karl Marx, New Deal, plutocracy, swamp rabbit, The Wire | 1 Comment

The curious case of the two Barack Obamas

Posted on December 10, 2013 by oddmanout215

My friend Swamp Rabbit laughed all week at the speech in which the president, in typically stirring style, called for better treatment of low-wage workers: Barack Obama warned that a “relentless, decades-long trend” of growing inequality and social immobility posed … Continue reading →

Posted in campaign finance reform, globalization, mainstream media, Obama, The New Depression, unemployment, world-wide economy | Tagged Barack Obama, fast-track TPP, minimum-wage increase, NAFTA on steroids, off-shoring, TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership | 2 Comments

Li’l Tom’s big lie about Walmart and women

Posted on June 23, 2013 by oddmanout215

Some Hollywood stars like to lend their names to noble causes. Other stars, more down to earth, prefer using their celebrity to pad their bank accounts. From Huffington Post, an exceptionally shabby example of the latter: Critics are calling out … Continue reading →

Posted in globalization, Great Recession, history, humor, liar, mainstream media, The New Depression, world-wide economy | Tagged Bangladesh factory collapse, Tom Cruise, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, Walmart | 1 Comment

Ding dong! Maggie’s dirty deeds live on

Posted on April 13, 2013 by oddmanout215

From a 2004 column in Daily Mail on what happened to the working class in Britain after Margaret Thatcher’s successful crusade to kill the miners’ union: … What the [coal miners’] strike represented to us was a set of values … Continue reading →

Posted in economic collapse, history, humor, mainstream media, pop music, The New Depression, unemployment, world-wide economy | Tagged coal miners' union, David Cameron, Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan | 3 Comments

Zizek on OWS: Where to next?

Posted on April 26, 2012 by oddmanout215

Bill O’Reilly recently denounced liberal economist Robert Reich as a communist, and Reich responded to this absurd charge by challenging O’Reilly to debate him. The debate I’d like to see, which will never take place, would be between O’Reilly and … Continue reading →

Posted in economic collapse, globalization, Great Recession, history, humor, movies, Occupy Wall Street, unemployment, world-wide economy | Tagged Bill O'Reilly, capitalism, communism, Ninotchka, Robert Reich, Slavoj Zizek | 2 Comments