Tag: Capitalism
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Mr. Marcus of Home Depot doesn’t understand capitalism
It’s hard to avoid stories about Prince Harry and his takedown of the royal family. His book Spare, which is released this week, apparently pulls no punches and disses much of the royal family including his brother William who he alleges bullied him as a kid. Despite watching all seasons of the Netflix series The…
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Today Jesus would be an atheist
My new home in Northampton, Massachusetts in some ways is not much different than life in the Washington D.C. region where I used to live. For example, there are plenty of homeless people here too. They are not hard to spot, particularly in downtown Northampton where they beg for spare change. I also see them…
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Capitalism’s minuses
This just in: former TV conservative crybaby Glenn Beck is going Galt, John Galt, that is. Galt is the central character in Ayn Rand’s seminal novel “Atlas Shrugged”. Through Galt, Rand fully articulated her philosophy of Objectivism, which emphasizes the virtue of complete, unfettered Laissez-faire capitalism. It is capitalism freed from the burdens of tariffs,…
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Wal-Mart employee becomes a martyr for greed
Sometimes a news story epitomizes what is wrong with our society. Sometimes they come in double doses. Two stories in the news have drawn my attention and ire. Both need more press than they have gotten. In today’s post, I concentrate on the first outrage. Black Friday this year turned black for an unexpected reason.…
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Mobile advertising: a very bad, very wrong idea
Just because you can do something does not mean you should actually follow through. Although like most Americans I am a firm believer in freedom, some ideas should be so over the top and so shameful that no one should actually deliver on them. One example is urinal and bathroom stall advertising. I noticed the…
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End Life Style Job Discrimination
Weyco Inc., a benefits service company based in Okemos, Michigan is a company for which you definitely do not want to work. At least that is my opinion about reading this article in today’s Washington Post Business Section. According to Washington Post Staff Writer Amy Joyce, this is a company that believes what you or…
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Government is the price of progress
Some years back I read a review of the book Children of the Depression. I purchased the book, which is full of glossy black and white pictures documenting ordinary life for children in America during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The pictures were found in the archives of the now defunct Farm Security Administration.…
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Government of the Corporation, by the Corporation and for the Corporation
Well, it’s now official. We live in a country of the corporation, by the corporation and for the corporation. The last nail in the coffin was today’s really amazingly bad decision by the United States Supreme Court. By 5-4 justices agreed that local governments could unilaterally take away a person’s home or business merely in…
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In the Land of the Suits
I’ve gotten spoiled. For more than a year I’ve dressed business casual instead of doing the pants, shirt, tie and dress shoes thing. Actually where I work (U.S. Geological Survey) it’s more casual than business casual. It’s casual pretty much all the time. Jeans and T-shirts at work are okay, almost de rigueur. If you…
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Dissing Excellence in Government
Why do we have governments? I’m serious. It shouldn’t be necessary to even ask this question. It should be obvious. But apparently some members of Congress haven’t grasped the basics. People form governments because there are certain things that can’t or shouldn’t be done by the private sector. It’s right there in the preamble to…
Occam's Razor 