Old Mole Variety Hour

Happy Bastille Day

For the Old Mole Variety Hour, July 14, 2014. The fourteenth of July marks a key event of the French Revolution in 1789; and the French Revolution, in turn, is generally seen as a key turning point in the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The storming of the prison ... Read more

Medicare for All Oregon

This Memorial Day, we might pause to remember those who have died in Oregon for lack of health insurance. As Chris Lowe notes on the Health Care for All Oregon webpage, "A 2009 estimate by Physicians for a National Health Program- connected doctors was that there were abo... Read more

Reviewing Capital 21

Produced for: Old Mole Variety Hour

For the Old Mole Variety Hour, April 7, 2014 Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century has been called the book that every economist is taking to the beach this summer, the Harry Potter of economic policy, and, if not one of the best books in economics, at l... Read more

neoliberal higher education, part two

For The Old Mole Variety Hour February 17, 2014. Henry Giroux reminds us what neoliberalism is about: it tells us that Government is the problem; Society is a fiction; Sovereignty is market-driven; Deregulation and commodification are vehicles for freedom; and Highe... Read more

in the edufactory

A briefer version of this appears on the February 3, 2013 Old Mole Variety Hour. You may already know that No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top and Common Core have been detrimental to K through 12 education. You may know that the Portland Association of Teachers has b... Read more

20 Years of Zapatista resistance to neoliberalism

A slightly shorter version of this appeared on the Jan 6, 2014 Old Mole Variety Hour. The well-read red considers Zapatista resistance to neoliberalism. This month marks "the 20th anniversary of the Zapatista uprising in . . . Mexico, a short moment with a long legacy of st... Read more

Poverty

It's hard to be poor. People who are not poor often fail to understand this, and the attempts of social scientists to explain things are often less illuminating than the narratives of the poor or formerly poor. Recently, a number of sites have reposted a blog entry from Lin... Read more

Pillaging Public Pensions

WRR: Pensions Last week, Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber called for a special legislative session (to begin 8am September 30th) noting that "we have an opportunity to combine cost savings from reforms to the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) and new revenue to restor... Read more

Happy Labor Day?

Happy Labor Day. Or, is it? You might have noticed that Labor is not doing so well lately. Multiple recent studies confirm that while productivity has grown over the past thirty years, and even over the last ten, wages have slowed, stagnated, and declined. Recent income g... Read more

Monsters of the Market reviewed

A shorter audio version of this review was broadcast on the January 7, 2013 Old Mole Variety Hour. Vampires and zombies abound these days in popular culture and in the culture of the market. In 2009, journalist Matt Taibbi famously dubbed the investment bank Goldman Sachs... Read more