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.” […]
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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. […]
Wikileaks Under Fire
On April 5, WikiLeaks.org plans to release at the National Press Club what it alleges is a video confirming a Pentagon cover-up of a wartime massacre of civilians and journalists […]
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.
Gold Fever and Artificial Value
[Scott Thill, AlterNet] Quick, check out this hot investment tip! For decades now, the Federal Reserve has been suppressing the true value of gold to keep its prodigious impact out […]
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 […]
Can Aspartame Kill You?
Well, let’s start wrapping up the stragglers from my year’s worth of content, shall we? Starting with this investigation of the sugar substitute aspartame, which can either kill you outright […]
Ten Ways to Screw the Screwers
From economic misery and political impotence to environmental waste and social catastrophe, American culture is overburdened by nightmares. I wrote an acidic but nevertheless educational rant for AlerNet on how […]
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 […]
Are Religious Birth Rates For Suckers?
I’ve got some great editors at AlterNet. They always keeps me on my toes with interesting topics. One of my favorite editors recently assigned me an analysis of birth rates, […]
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 […]
Step Aside McDonald’s, Subway’s Surging
Subway has managed to carve out a lucrative niche in a perfect storm of fast food and economic recession.
What’s Thin-Film Solar? The Future Today
Last century, solar power struggled to enlighten the renewable resource community. This year, it’s downsizing to thin films you can put on your car and your body, shining the way […]
Mortgage Underwater? Just Walk Away
No one likes a bad investment, especially when everyone has been making them. The housing meltdown was built on a house of cards called securitization, and it ruined the global […]
Cops Have Lost Their Minds With Tasers
Dude, I’m so happy to be done with my major piece on tasers, and the shock-happy cops that use them, for AlterNet. Talk about your endless bad news. Every day […]
Land and Water Grabs In The Age of Climate Change
The economic valuation of land and water has increased in concurrence with both price commodities and the ravages of climate change, whose droughts, wildfires and other extreme environmental events are quickly shrinking what’s left of the planet’s arable land and clean water
What Really Causes Autism? Everything.
I knew about as much as the next journo about autism, before AlterNet sent me in search of its roots and riots. And what usually never happens happened: I came […]
California Drought Threatens Entire Nation
The way California is currently wasting water — on elaborate lawns in Beverly Hills, on cow death-camps in the San Joaquin Valley, on whatever — it either doesn’t know where its water comes from or simply doesn’t care.
Currency Wars Coming Right Up!
It’s probably not the sexiest battle on Earth, but it is easily one of the most important. With the econopocalypse ravaging what’s left of the American economy and the currency […]
Hydrogen Sulfide Is A Nasty Way For Life On Earth to Die
Unfortunately, you can usually find H2S whenever and wherever you’ve got mass extinctions.