Word: snake-oil
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East and Southeast Asia these days are capitalism unbound, the "communist" world as America's Wild West, complete with its own snake-oil salesmen and robber barons. The People's Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam have seen the Wild East, and they like what they...
...lack of competition may be only temporary. If the industry succeeds in shedding its snake-oil image, more upscale entrepreneurs are likely to rush in and take advantage by starting new channels. TV retailing won't make department stores obsolete just yet, but it might make a dent in the mall business...
Further, family values, a flashy issue of opportunity, has about it a certain eloquent irrelevance -- something like the old waving of the bloody shirt, or the snake-oil vending that has always gone on in American politics. North Carolina Senator Robert Rice Reynolds, a baroque declaimer of the Southern school of rural demagogy in the '30s and '40s, was a genius of flavorsome insinuation. "Do y'all know what ((my opponent's)) favorite dish is?" he would ask slowly of his "God-fearin', 'tater-raisin', baby-havin' " constituents. Then in a burst of disgusted indignation: "Caviar!" The word came...
Such tactics have raised the hackles of Montanans, who do not take kindly to outside interference by what Ron Marlenee, a Republican U.S. Representative, calls "Eastern tinhorn snake-oil salesmen." Marlenee has introduced legislation in Congress that would prohibit interference with the bison hunters on public land. A similar bill failed to pass during the last session...
...national debt has more than tripled in the past 11 years. A debt of such enormity simply cannot be paid off without sacrifice. Paying it off will mean higher taxes and reduced spending over many years. Anyone who thinks -- or promises -- otherwise is either a dupe or a snake-oil salesman...