Category economics
Keeping up the fight when the fight is lost
One of the issues that hangs up discussions of near term human extinction (especially among those who understand that we might well be on the road for that) is the way the larger public might abandon any attempt to fix the climate if they know we’ve passed the point of no return. I’ve had conversations and […]
Near Term Human Extinction 101
I have had a number of wonderful/sad/bittersweet/ conversations with people over the past few months regarding the probability of near term human extinction as a result of climate disruption. One of the problems for people who haven’t followed the discussions from people who understand near term human extinction is that the threads don’t fit together easily. Dr. […]
Hostage Capitalism, the ACA and RIP Medical Debt
(a CBS promo for a story about RIP Medical Debt) I don’t wish to join the conventional chorus of nay-sayers about ‘Obamacare’ (formally the ACA), but results are in after the Supreme Court upheld the law a few weeks ago, and it ain’t pretty. It appears that the insurance companies are jacking up insurance rates some […]
Hitting peak oil twice
Per this article from Zerohedge, it appears we ‘Muricans have done something that was previously thought impossible. We’ve peaked twice in oil production. US Oil production hit its first peak around 1970, when we were getting 10 million barrels a day of our beloved dead dinosaur juice out of the ground and ocean drilling platforms. […]
The Dead Zone–parsing out the past year
This is (per WordPress math) my 400th blog posting. I started my blog in 2012 when the memes of Occupy Wall Street were not getting traction in Main Stream media. I also was working on touring a number of my plays–I was writing about protest and revolution and income inequality. Lots of gigs, very little money. […]
Greece melts down; the world starts to melt with it
the Eurozone might be short a star soon. Image from Reuters. As I type this, the results have come in and the Greek electorate has voted against the austerity measures demanded by the EU (primarily Germany) that would allow them to pay off the debt they owe. I’m thinking that maybe it would be a […]
Clueless proposal on older workers
Bad few days for my personal/family economic outlook. And not just me personally–while all the happy people are crowing about how well the economy has come back, I’ve been hit with one story of personal crisis after another. A friend forced out of his job due to injury; another friend given notice from a place she’s […]
The Red Nose campaign–whitewash for tax cheats?
Are any of you seeing lots of these ads? If you spend time online or waiting to buy groceries at Walgreens, or you watch a lot of NBC TV, you’re getting bombarded. Walgreens, NBC and Comic Relief are all onboard for this charity event, ostensibly to benefit poor children in the US (there’s also mention of […]
93 million out of the workforce
There has been much jubilation over the latest unemployment report, which shows that the economy had grown by 223,000 jobs last month. Market analysts and economists were watching the April numbers closely, after an anemic 126,000 jobs added in March had to be ‘adjusted’ down to 85,000 jobs. Remember that anything below 150,000 new jobs […]
The Brooklyn Culture Jam 