Albertās oil-patch is a zombie, the walking dead. The companies that extract oil there owe more money than they can pay, more than they can borrow, more than they can earn. If they were made to pay their lawful debts, they would all go bankrupt, and, in so doing, would end the extraction of one of the dirtiest, worst sources of oil in the world.
Now, thereās an argument that all the oil companies are busted, Alberta or no. If they were made to pay for the damage theyāve done to our world, the millions their deadly products have killed and the billions they threaten, they would all be cleaned out.
Twitch does a chokepoint capitalism: "Amazon is charging Amazon so much money to run the business via Amazon that it has no choice but to take more money from streamers."
Iām out on tour again, my first in-person book tour since 2019. I had four books come out during lockdown and ātouredā them over Zoom, which was as good as many talented and dedicated publishing PR people, booksellers, and co-presenters could make it.
Now, after three years, Iām out on tour again. Itās an odd kind of tour, because itās a different kind of book. Chokepoint Capitalism isnāt a novel from a Big Five publisher, itās a nonfiction critique of monopolies and cartels. That includes the Big Five, which is why we went with an indie, the storied Beacon Press, praised by the likes of Albert Einstein and Howard Zinn for a publishing program that promotes progressive values.