From Pine View Farm

Mammon category archive

This New Gilded Age, One More Time 0

Man goose-stepping down the street carrying a sign reading,

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This New Gilded Age, Reprise 0

Union-busting is apparently the cool new retro thing for the gilders of this new gilded age.

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This New Gilded Age 0

As Mark Twain pointed out, history does not repeat itself, but it often echoes.

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Genius at Work 0

Man and woman standing at mailbox.  Man says to woman,

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Nor Any Drop To Drink 0

Farron discusses Jordan Chariton’s new book on the Flint water poisoning crisis.

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This New Gilded Age 0

Sam and the crew talk with Anne Kim, contributing editor at Washington Monthly, about the roots of the privitization scam.

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The Crypto Con 0

Now, it’s coming after your pension fund (assuming, of course, that you even have a pension fund in this New Gilded Age).

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The Entitlement Society 0

Boy, if this isn’t a manifestation of the entitlement society, I don’t know what is.

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Twits Own Twitter X Offenders 0

Elon Mush has a new suit.

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The Self-Made Man 0

Title:  Weirdo Welfare.  Frame One, captioned

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This New Gilded Age 0

The Washington Monthly’s Anne Kim takes a deep dive into the “Heritage” Foundation’s plan to bring back robber barons, aka Project 2025, and concludes that “it’s even worse than you think.”

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This New Gilded Age 0

Farron looks at the “Heritage” Foundation’s Project 2025 plan to raise taxes for the poor, who have litle money, and lower taxes for the rich, who have lots of money.

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Disparate Treatment 0

At the San Francisco Chronicle, law professor Samantha Buckingham wonders how Donald Trump’s numerous criminal trials might have gone if he were not protected by his (reputed) wealth.

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Stray Thought 0

“Yes, but will it hold up in court?” is no longer a valid rhetorical question.

We have seen that, with the application of enough juice for a long enough time to the correct vulnerable points, anything, regardless of legality or morality, will hold up in court.

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How Stuff Works: Trickle On Economics 0

Frames One to Four:  Rat stands on a pedestal labeled

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Aside:

Methinks the fundamental principle of Reaganomics, which still afflicts the polity was, “From each according to his ability to boss man according to his greed.”

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Freedom of Screech in This New Gilded Age 0

Self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk threatens to take advertisers to court so as to force them to place their advertising speech on Twitter X, because he is absolutely in favor of freedom of speech, or something.

Yeah, I know, it sounds absolutely insane. Follow the link and decide for yourself.

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Alphabet Slop 0

As I zipped through drug commercials on the DVR–and there are sure lots of them since advertising prescription drugs to the public was allowed–I theorized that drug companies made up drug names by pouring letters into two big bins like the ones used for lottery numbers–one bin for vowels and one for consonants–then pulled out letters at random from each.

Now comes Roger Kreuz, writing at Psychology Today Blogs, to explain that there is indeed a system to the synthesis of multi-syllabic pharmaceutical gibberish. For example:

Drug companies use marketing consultants to help them create brand names for their wares. These are typically two syllables or more in length, and the letters H, J, K, and Y are mostly avoided because they aren’t used in all languages that employ the Roman alphabet.

Follow the link for an insight to the psychology of branding.

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Market Farces 0

At Psychology Today Blogs, Douglas Van Praet explores how marketeers manipulate persons into paying why some folks are willing to pay $25,000 for a hoodie.

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“License To Loot” 0

Mike and Farron run the numbers and conclude that greedflation is indeed a thing.

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The Business of America Is Giving America the Business 0

Title:  A Brief History of Self-Regulation.  Frame One, captioned

Via Job’s Anger.

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