Americans are gluttons. This we know. I have seen the Sunday night buffet at a barbecue joint in Wilson, N.C. I have watched contestants weigh in at 400 lbs.-plus on The Biggest Loser. What’s worse, we pretend we’re not. We gobble up books like Skinny Bitch, a vegan manifesto, and yet 85% of Americans scarf down the fried-meat sandwich …
CapitalistCast: A World Economic Forum in search of a theme
This one was taped in a Davos parking lot. With some camerawork and other excellent assistance from Mrs. Curious Capitalist.
Everybody hates Mitt, office edition
Everybody Hates Romney
is the headline Alternet gives its reprinting of this post by Steve Benen of The Carpetbagger Report. He writes:
A couple of days before the Republicans’ New Hampshire primary, ABC hosted a debate for the GOP field, during which every candidate on the stage attacked Mitt Romney. Huckabee hit him on Iraq,
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Bono recounts his confession to Father Al (Gore)
When Al Gore talks, Bono and Tom Friedman listen
This morning’s big attraction here in Davos was a breakfast in which Bono and Al Gore were supposed to talk about “Combining Solutions to Extreme Poverty and the Climate Crisis.”
Bono noted up front that there’s competition as well as combination: “We have noticed that interest from …
Davos Wednesday photo album
So I’ve been too overwhelmed with dead-tree stuff to report much here today. But I did at least take a few pictures:
A morning shot of, uh, some mountain. Maybe the Jakobshorn?
Davos by night, and a fine Alabama-made vehicle (go American exports!)
Alice Waters, talking about the fine dinner of local goat and stuff she put together
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Where’s my old girls’ network?
Over the years, I’ve heard a lot about a supposed old girls’ network. You know what I mean by this: the old, white men who used to run industry are slowly being joined by a cadre of women who exert similar power.
Take this piece in the Washington Post, by Carrie Johnson, about just such a network in techology.
Fewer women enroll in
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CapitalistCast 2: Life in Davos is hard
Here goes. I know, I’ve got to work on the whole centering-my-face in the screen thing. I should add that Ned Phelps, whom I just met, is a very entertaining guy. Not that I really captured that (or tried to) in the video. But here’s a little sample. George Soros has an opinion piece in today’s FT headlined “The worst market crisis in 60 …
Fortune says I should work at Google
Fortune, our sister magazine, just came out with its annual list of the 100 best companies to work for (check out its dazzling web treatment, then buy the Feb. 4 issue, you cheapskate). Google is its top employer, and yes, it’s like deja vu all over again: they ranked #1 last year, too.
What makes Google great? Watch this video, if you …
Why tourists make me appreciate work
As far as I’m concerned, humans have three walking speeds: fast, slow and tourist. There’s little that irritates me more on my morning commute through Times Square than getting stuck on a sidewalk behind a pack of Midwesterners who have decided against bipedal forward movement. Nothing against you folks from the middle states. I’m just …
Plagued by buzzing noises in Davos
That’s Becky Sharp of CNBC and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, wishing a Swiss Army helicopter would stop buzzing them. I was supposed to go on a little later with Andrew Sorkin of the NYT, but we got bumped by stock market events in the U.S. I’m frantically trying to finish a piece for dead-tree Time at the moment. Will …
Identity and the minority woman voter
I feel I have a lot in common with Barack Obama. He’s half white and half other, like me. In fact, his half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, interviewed here in the New York Times Magazine, is my own racial mix: half white and half Asian. He’s the closest to me in age among all the candidates. He and I both spent a lot of time in Asia and Hawaii …
Watching the markets and the Fed from a snowy place
I really can’t think of a better place to spend a global financial semi-meltdown than in the cozy bar/cocktail lounge of the Parkhotel Silvretta in Klosters (a sweet little resort town just down the hill from bigger, less-charming Davos). Outside it’s snowing. Inside it’s warm, and I’m sitting in a comfy chair, partaking of an excellent …
