Economy and Business
Consumer Protection and Corporate Purses
In this period of painfully partisan politics, it’s too easy for the focus to be on who won today, instead of the American people’s needs. We’re witnessing just that in two roiling debates–one over the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA), another over the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
Help Cure Sallie Mae’s Sugar Addiction
Sallie Mae isn’t one of those girls who’re made of “sugar and spice and everything nice.” Well, she is filled with sugar, but it comes from you and me, thanks to a longtime sweetheart deal she has from the federal government.
Sweatshops Won’t Save Haiti
The United Nations will host a Haiti donors’ conference at the end of March.
This conference will be quite different from last year’s event, of course, coming as it does on the heels of the worst earthquake to strike Haiti in two centuries. An agenda has already begun to take shape: It’s already clear that a future Haiti must be populated with environmentally sustainable, earthquake-resistant buildings, for example, and it’s also clear that the international community must do something to ease Haiti’s massive debt burden.
Health Care Is a Study in Greed
America’s No. 1 growth industry is health care. No one has yet found No. 2. This preeminent role is not due to deadly epidemics, environmental meltdown, or massive public education. It’s due to greed.
Nuking Taxpayers
Toyota: Japan’s General Motors
Of the Japanese car companies, Toyota became the leader. They were kind of clunky-looking–the Japanese didn’t do style–but they became known as a brand that was reliable, efficient, and durable.
Free Those Corporate Slaves
Here’s a constitutional conundrum that the five Supreme corporatists undoubtedly failed to contemplate: Since the 13th Amendment prohibits slavery, which is ownership of a person, don’t we now have to shut down the stock market, which is where corporations are bought and sold? It’s a new civil rights battleground, where we can join hands and chant: “Free the Corporate Slaves Now!”
How about High-Speed Buses?
OK, so you might not be willing to bus from Philly to Denver, but you wouldn’t take a train either. You might, however, bus from Cincinnati to Cleveland rather than fly, if it were done well. In any case, the job won’t get done by high-speed rail, so let’s get working on a practical alternative.
Taxpayers Are Getting Nuked
Compulsive gamblers are perpetually looking for the big score. Always thinking that the next card will draw that inside straight or the last card will turn their garbage into gold. Casinos have a name for these people–suckers. Well, Uncle Sam has pushed more than $8 billion into the pot, gambling on big returns from the nuclear power industry. Sadly, we know where this ends.
Avatar’s History Lesson
Like Barack Obama, Avatar has become a Rorschach test for the times in which we live. Everyone interprets it their own way. Nominated for nine Oscars, it’s already the highest-grossing film of all time-having pulled in around $2.5 billion globally. More importantly, Avatar could become a game-changer in our evolving cultural consciousness about the impact of modernity on the world.
