Category Archives: Economy

“Us Vs. Stuff” or “What The **** Is Up With Subscription Services?”

Readers, this rambling only semi-coherent post comes from the sickbed of yours truly, where I am currently battling a cold that I just don’t have time for right now.

With that in mind, you might be e’er so slightly charitable when you hear me ask: “No seriously, what’s up with subscription services?”

For those of you who were as unaware as I was (up until a few months ago), the latest trend has folks being sent, well, “boxes of stuff”.

How it works is essentially as follows: one will pay a monthly fee to a company who will, in turn, send said person a box/crate full of items they believe the individual will like. While there is some customization available (I could get a monthly shave-kit delivered, for example), there’s often a certain degree of chance involved. BlueApron.com, for example, will send subscribers recipes with per-packaged ingredients. Other sites, like LootCrate.com will send whatever nerd and geek accoutrements they decide to.

Now readers, maybe its the ongoing battle in my sinus cavity or maybe I really am just a mean, cynical miser, but I just don’t get it. And I don’t mean to come across harsher than I probably will, but I really don’t quite like what this seems to say about us as a culture. Do we really have so much excess cash that we’re just giving it to some strangers and saying “surprise me”? Continue reading

Why I’m Not A Liberal

…and yeah, that’s from the point of me speaking as a rabid Marxist.

And speaking as a Marxist, this has always been a peeve of mine. With the way politics often gets portrayed, plenty of folks (both liberal and conservative alike) get the misconception that Socialism is just a ‘roided up version of Liberalism and Communism is just a ‘roided of up version of that, with the state getting more and more powerful, larger in size, and more invasive in scope as you progress along that line.

That’s absolutely not how it works, and while that picture’s wrong, I’m not really here today to correct that.

(Though just for the record, this’d be a more accurate picture of the political spectrum…)

I’ve been playing around with this post for a while now, and it’s coming from more than just a desire to clear up my own stance. I truly do think that of the two major forces in American politics and culture, Liberalism is actually the more insidious (I’m not saying that Conservatism is better, but it does seem a lot easier to confront). I’m writing not to just talk about why I’m not a liberal, but why I don’t think you should be one either.

That said, let’s bring up the obvious:

I’m not going to try to address all Liberalism- that’d be a tough task for a book, let alone some blog post. I’m not going to try to attack hypocrisy either, those accusations can always be dismissed with the “no true Scotsman” fallacy. Instead, I’m going to try to hit what I think are the core flaws and paradoxes that the ideology rests on. Continue reading

Freedom Socialist Party Offers $13 An Hour (This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things)

We’ve already talked about Kshama Sawant. Elected to Seattle’s city council in 2013, Sawant’s victory marked one of the greatest comebacks in American socialism- or at least, Americans’ openness to socialism- in a long time. While her endorsement of Senator Bernie Sanders resulted in snide “I told ya so’s” from the radical left (for whom happiness is counterrevolutionary), everything was going relatively well. An open Marxist had been elected without the sky falling and in spite of the griping of its opponents, the $15 an hour minimum wage in the city of SeaTac appears to be promoting growth, rather than stifling it.

And then this happened:

Socialists Push For $20 Minimum Wage But Won’t Pay Workers That Much

…Yeah. Continue reading

The Ethics of Tourism: Considering A Small Place in the Traveller’s Era

Is it immoral to be a tourist?

A few weeks ago we returned from spending a week long vacation in Cuba. You may have even read my last post with suggestions for anyone else who might be interested in traveling there.

So, why, out of the blue, am I asking you about the morality of tourism?

Well, it’s probably because of Jamaica Kincaid and her book, A Small Place.

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Yes For Scotland

Did you know that in a few days, Scotland will vote on becoming an independent nation?

On the 18th of this month, Scots will be flocking to polling stations to vote either “yes” or “no” on becoming a self-governed country, joining in the movement with many areas of Europe, currently campaigning for self-determination (though barring the Catalonians, Scotland’s probably the closest any have yet gotten).

And may that day yet come…

So is this a good thing? We here at CWR say yes. Continue reading

Fame Day: BDS

UN Officials report having warned Israel “17 times” that the school was housing refugees and children.

I’m writing this after one of the deadliest days in the recent bombing of Gaza. As of right now, estimates place the Palestinian death toll for the past 24 hours as being over 100, with many lost after the IDF (“Israel Defense Force”) bombed a UN school-turned-refugee shelter. With the total death count standing at 1,336, it can be tough in such times to feel that there’s any hope- but readers, there is a way to fight back.

It’s called “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions“.

Continue reading