Andymatic

Category: Business

  • FDA Panel Stacked with Big Pharma

    From Stephanie on the Coach Outlaws list: Ten of the 32 government drug advisers who last week endorsed continued marketing of the huge-selling pain pills Celebrex, Bextra and Vioxx have consulted in recent years for the drugs’ makers, according to disclosures in medical journals and other public records. Eight of the 10 members said in…

  • China Finances 1/3 of US Deficit

    Despite a good start to the year, when the private sector was a large net purchaser of dollar assets, central banks came to the rescue again. The People’s Bank of China has let it be known that China increased dollar reserves by $207bn (€159bn) in 2004, financing nearly a third of the US current account…

  • Bally's Teams up with YUM Brands

    Another gem off MeFi: Bally Total Fitness, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC, Long John Silver’s and A&W Restaurants announced today a holiday gift that will help Americans jumpstart their 2005 New Year’s resolution to get in shape. What? No Bally’s members will be admitted to five of the greasiest and most ubiquitous feeding troughs on…

  • Flight Attendants Union Considers Strike

    A close friend who is a flight attendant informs me that the AFA – the Association of Flight Attendants union – which governs the workers of United, US Airways and I ATA is considering a strike to protest unfair paycuts and conditions. My friend is very much against the union since there really isn’t much…

  • How to Solve the Outsourcing Problem

    I got it all figured out: Continue to prevent any sort of legislation that helps inform consumers of the enormous amount of debt they have and prevent any sort of caps on credit card fees. Remove protections for individuals that file for bankruptcy. More and more people drive themselves into debt and attempt to file…

  • Why You Can't Jam the Culture

    But I liked Adbusters: What countercultural rebels call cooptation is in fact just competitive consumption, instigated and exacerbated by the rebels themselves. This is why rebellion of this sort has become one of the major forces driving consumer capitalism in the past 40 years. The reason the system never changes is that cultural radicalism is…

  • Loew's Hardware Can Go Straight to Hell

    Kelmeister linked to Loew’s hardware and got a cease-and-desist notice. Bullocks to that. The foundation of the internet is that anyone can link to anything at anytime. Without permission. Without asking. If it is publicly available – it is linkable. What a bunch of douches. And I rarely use that term. It’s called .htaccess and…

  • EU Loses on Food Trademarking

    Equal trade sucks don’t it? [The] example of Italian ham producers from Parma having to rebrand their product as “super ham” in Canada, because local producers had already trademarked the Parma ham name. Other products the EU said have been affected include Cognac, Sherry, Grappa, Rioja and Roquefort.

  • Chain Stores and Condos Bad for Community

    I remembered reading this in the Chicago Free Press and was glad to find it online: Local businesses in Andersonville [north neighborhood of Chicago], the study said, tend to spend more of their revenues on labor and purchase services and goods from other local businesses at much higher rates than the chains. The study concluded…

  • Is Wal-Mart Good for America? (Frontline)

    Dad just called and said that this week’s Frontline on Wal-Mart is particularly chilling, illustrating the collusion between Wal-Mart, U.S. politicians and the Chinese government. Like I’ve said before – middle-America doesn’t realize that Low Prices Always means Low Wages Always and the death of domestic manufacturing. I need to make a reminder to watch…