The World Bank Water Grab
Billions have been spent allowing corporations to profit from public water sources even though water privatization has been an epic failure. But don’t tell that to loansharks at the World Bank.
Greenvesting
Carly Fiorina = California Disaster
AlterNet asked me to heckle ex-HP CEO and itinerant ideologist Carly Fiorina before the November election, in hopes of shedding some light on why should we make California suck even […]
Chemical Catastrophe, Coming Right Up!
Responsibility for chemical security may be shared among federal, state and local governments, as well as the private sector. But right now they’re all epically failing us, which make us sitting ducks if there is a catastrophe.
Climate Killers Take Aim At California
California is leading the way out of the enviropocalypse with the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. Now a political bullet called Proposition 32 has been fashioned to kill it, […]
Google + Verizon = Bad News For Internet
As Google and Verizon made clear in their proposal, emboldening a publicly engineered alternative wireless Internet is going to be hard to do.
The Mattress Racket
So my excellent AlterNet editor and SoCal pal Jan Frel has been asking me to start muckraking rackets, and it’s been a hoot. I’ve already rooted out Red Bull and […]
Welcome to the Retirement Nightmare
Remember when the plan was to pour a percentage of your hard-earned salary into a retirement account, usually supplied by your employer? Who then invested your money with the company’s […]
The Cell Phone Racket
If you’re not angry with AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint — America’s four national wireless providers that reportedly control 90 percent of the market — then here’s some ridiculous news to raise your righteous ire.
Flash Crash: Robotrading The Market
Flash Crash proved that market makers playing both sides of securities could be capable of wiping out any corporation’s stock, perhaps any nation’s economy
Deepwater Horizon’s Epic OilGas Catastrophe
If you’ve been railing for decades against the fossil fuel sector for everything from deliberately removing safeguards that could have prevented what will likely end up being the worst U.S. oil disaster in history to its lethal emissions that could, in the extreme, end up warming planet Earth to the point that human habitation is an impossibility, well, this is all old, sad news.
Why China Has Our Economy By the Balls
[Scott Thill, AlterNet] On May 1, China popped the cork on Expo 2010 in Shanghai, a months-long international celebration signifying the ascension of the city, and thereby its parent nation, […]
Showdown On Wall Street
[Scott Thill, AlterNet] Good thing Goldman Sachs reported its first-quarter profits on the popular pot holiday April 20. Because you had to be totally stoned to appreciate the sheer, corrupt […]
With Finance, Expected the Unexpectedly
When it comes to the finance casino, expect the unexpected. And when it comes to the financial press that is committed to covering it, expect to hear the word “unexpectedly.” […]
Goodbye, Paper Money
[Scott Thill, AlterNet] Currency has come a long way in the past few thousand years of human existence. Ancient Turkey started using hybrid silver and gold coins around 640 B.C. […]
Ten Ways Mother Earth Will Strike Back
Welcome to our existential nightmare, from rising seas and runaway droughts and storms to the outer limits of dystopian catastrophes like the fart apocalypse.
Goldman Sucks Greece, Swallows The Eurozone
I’ve been writing about Goldman Sucks — that is, rapacious economics star chamber Goldman Sachs — for years now. And I’m glad the rest of the world is finally paying […]
UN: Climate Crisis Attention Lacks Ambition
They would rather wait until the climate crisis has already ripped the roof off the world as they knew it, before doing anything significant about it.
Yellow Light Panopticon Crashes, Burns
With profit as the red-light camera’s primary motive, it’s hard for an already disenfranchised citizenry to find friends in those money-hungry local governments.
Technocracy Blowback: Five Case Studies
“Why blame technology? It generally does what it is coded to do. It’s the human sentient understanding of how to take cruel advantage of human weakness that’s the problem.”
Global Warming’s Catastrophic Polarities
Climate change deniers argue that the frozen storms battering America have nothing to do with the arrival of hell on Earth. But destabilizing intensity on either end of the weather spectrum is our new normal, and we better get used to it.
New York Times Bites My Walkaway Rhyme
[Scott Thill, Morphizm] Look, New York Times: You can pay me for my cultural and political insights. People already do. Seriously. Like when you posted that article today advising underwater […]
Attack of the Foreclosed Homeowners!
Hey, have you heard the one about the underwater homeowners who unsuccessfully tried to modify their home loans, but got even by tying two loan servicers to chairs and beating […]
Can We Call It a Depression Now?
I conceived this article before the Dow passed 10,000, and wrote it afterward. It went up on AlterNet right before the Dow fell from 10,000 and now I’m posting it […]
Margaret Atwood, Apocalyptic Optimist
When people first started writing this stuff, they didn’t call it science fiction.
Econopocalypse Derailed By Antimatter
I always love to interview the conceptual artist Jonathon Keats. His art consists in crafting up out-there propositions that make you think and laugh in equal measure. His latest is […]