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This Week in OtherWords: December 4, 2013
This week in OtherWords, Sarah Anderson relays how taxpayers are subsidizing the CEOs of huge fast food companies, Sam Pizzigati sums up the Pope's economic concerns, and Jill Richardson explains why holiday giving doesn't require consumerism. Donald Kaul is still...
Exposing Secret Trade Pacts
NAFTA. CAFTA-DR. TPP. TTIP. That numbing spoonful of alphabet soup represents four so-called free trade pacts that benefit global capital at the expense of everyone else. The North American Free Trade Agreement came first, and NAFTA will soon mark its 20th...
The Fake Debt Crisis
As the American people tried to celebrate last year's holiday season while mourning the loss of 26 lives in Newtown, Connecticut, Congress and the White House were duking it out over the "fiscal cliff." Our leaders reached a temporary solution on New Year's Day that...
Thou Shalt Not Tolerate Inequality
Sometimes you don't have to say anything "new" to make news. Consider the "apostolic exhortation" the Vatican recently released. This statement from Pope Francis, observers note, didn't really break new theological ground. But the Pope's exhortation, his first since...
Celebrating the Season without Worshipping Consumerism
The holiday traditions are starting already. Here's mine. My mom called me because she found a great deal on a paring knife at Williams Sonoma. Do I want it? I assured her that I'm getting along fine with the knives I have but thanked her for the thought. And I have...
Coke’s Ploy to Drain Your Wallet When You Dine Out
Coca-Cola is running a stealth advertising campaign. Stealth? Why would a corporation known for its iconic ads like Coke spend big bucks on advertising that it doesn't want consumers to notice? Shhhh. The soft drink giant's campaign is a surreptitious ploy to enlist...
Just Say No to the Drug War
Old habits die hard. Take the War on Drugs. Please. Yes, its momentum has sagged a bit now, what with the Pew Research Center finding that a majority of Americans believe marijuana should be legal. But don't hold your breath waiting for new national laws. There's way...
Pope Francis Riles Wall Street
This Conservative Fad Stinks
Tenacity can be an admirable trait in a leader — except when it's stupid. Stupid tenacity has afflicted several right-wing governors and lawmakers who grabbed hold of a bad idea that, in practice, has proven to be even worse than expected. The bad idea was to whup the...
Fast Food Giants Gorge on Subsidies
The fast food industry is notorious for handing out lean paychecks to their burger flippers and fat ones to their CEOs. What's less well-known is that taxpayers are actually subsidizing fast food incomes at both the bottom — and top — of the industry. Take, for...
