Kevin O'Leary is one of those people who think that the world revolves around entrepreneurs and making money. He's well known in Canada because he's one of the "dragons" on Dragon's Den.
O'Leary recently got in trouble by saying that if he were Prime Minister he would "make unions illegal" and throw union members in jail. He also said; ""Unions are sheer evil." … "Unions themselves are born out of evil. They must be destroyed with evil." … "Look, no one could contain unions in hell. They were so evil they came out of hell and they came upon earth." [NUPGE / OPSEU file complaint with CBC Ombudsman over offensive anti-union comments by Kevin O'Leary].
As you might imagine, Kevin O'Leary is against the "Occupy Wall Street" movement even if he doesn't understand it. To him it must sound like a bunch of "left-wing nutbars" trying to muscle in on his God-given right to exploit the gullible.
Unfortunately he used that expression ("left-wing nutbar") on national television (CBC) and applied it to the guest they were interviewing (Chris Hedges). You can see it for yourself in the video. It's very embarrassing. I'm normally a supporter of the CBC but this makes it look like FOX News.
O'Leary has already been reprimanded by CBC's Ombudsman [CBC ombudsman says O'Leary's 'nutbar' remark violated journalistic standards]. I think it's time he was removed from the "The Lang & O'Leary Exchange."1
1. Not because he has a different opinion than I do. Because he's stupid.
16 comments :
Well, having recently been exposed to Hedges' tirade against atheists, I'm not sure "nutbar" isn't a deserved epithet. However, it does raise the question: is there a rule that journalists named "O'Leary" can be right only by accident?
Kevin O'Leary is apparently fairly good at making money, but he does come across as both an idiot and an abrasive ass every time I see him on TV. Not sure why he hasn't been kicked off of the CBC yet given this is the third time he has gotten in trouble with the CBC ombudsman.
Although I do also wish Hedges had of started out his interview as articulate as he was at the end when reaming O'Leary. Referencing Marx and making sweeping statements that DO make it sound like you think all Corporations should be abolished isn't a good way to start. He did better at the end when he made it clear he was talking about financial institutions and separating banks from Hedge Funds, etc.
Hedges' complaints about insults (which were pretty lame by Internet standards) seemed a bit whiny. For a minute he sounded almost like some easily offended faitheist. But Hedges still managed to come off as the serious, knowledgeable debater compared to O'Leary. Not that the protests matter, since the global economy will crash and burn anyway, along with the environment. I'm just hoping I'll be dead when that happens.
Give me a break. After watching the clip this is left-wing nutbar much ado about nothing. To think this was posted by someone that teaches our youth makes me shudder.
Jon says,
Give me a break. After watching the clip this is left-wing nutbar much ado about nothing. To think this was posted by someone that teaches our youth makes me shudder.
You "shudder" because there may be people teaching things at university that you strongly disagree with?
What kind of university teachers would you prefer?
I don't care too much about who Kevin O'Leary is.
Calling him a "Jerk" by Lonely Moron rhymes with calling himself (by his admittance, by using her adjective on him by her scientist daughter!) "stupid", or his throwing around ad hominems as "kook", "IDiot" etc. ad nauseam .
Lonely Moron is a disgrace.
i LOVE Kevin Oleary. He speaks the truth based on the way our society is structured right now. Around captitalism. until that changes, what he says makes sense and the market and performance dictate wages, not artificial unions or govt intervention which have gotten us in this mess. Auto industry? Air Canada anyone? Let them get a job else where if they're unhappy. Problem is they'll starve cause they won't get what they have in their artificial protectionism environment based on fairy tale wishes of getting more for less. Nice story. Not reality.
Oleary is a walking contradiction. Blathers about government subsidizing, bailing-out businesses, but does not have a problem taking money from the 100% subsidized CBC.
Oleary is just not an intellectual, but he is the reason why we have unions and consumer protection. The real problem is he is just not very entertaining, but that is CBC.
Llareggub
What I can't figure out is why CBC calls upon this idiot (O'Leary) to comment on just about everything. My favourite is in the morning when he is red-faced, forever bald and has a towel around is neck. Of course he might be in his hotel room or in the back of a limo at other times. An important man we are supposed to believe. Anyway his grasp of the world around him outside of greed is very narrow and not worth listening to. CBC please do us all a favour and yourselves, fire him out the door. Biff.
Exactly...I noticed CBC for some unknown reason called upon his overhyped expertise yesterday(5:00AM PST) post his morning squash game. (yes towel around his neck). There are certainly more knowledgeable finance professionals in tune with global issues; O'Leary is just a windbag repeating the same narrow concepts over and over...anti-union, anti-govt., decade of daddy crap. He isn't even a good fund manager; and he made his millions by selling a worthless company to Mattel (can you say shady accounting...not sure how the SEC missed that one, but then again it was during the Madoff era) and in turn shafted countless shareholders.
O'leary is a psuedo intellectual, wanna-be-right wing moron. He's so incredibly biased and blinded by anything he's selling at the moment. He's actually not even that good at making money - losing tons of cash on his hedge funds and other investments.
Hedges isn't against atheists per se - he has a more specific critique of 'new atheist' authors, mainly Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, and mostly things that are not actually about their atheism. It's moreso how they frame religion, he says, in a way that actually mirrors the irrationality and bigotry they try to condemn, and make certain conclusions about human rights, morality and foreign policy.
Incidentally,I'm an atheist and I like Hedges a lot. To me it's really more about a particular style of atheism than about the belief itself.
Idiot.
I see histories just a word in the dictionary to you . How sad that you cut you'er own throat without even knowing it , and by the way , if anyone group of people live in the land of something for nothing its the wealthiest amongst us , but then finance , as well as history , apparently isn't you'er thing as well , cheerleader .
When O'Leary made the comment that it's fantastic that 85 financial criminals have as much wealth as 50% of all humanity-I could tolerate his BS up until that point, but now I have signe the petition to get him fired from the CBC and would love to step into the ring with him.
Ya, O'Leary is a greedy pig that would suck a worm dry. The type that clear cuts the mountains of its trees, their only value is dry cut lumber. The type that hunts the great whales till extinction, their only value is sushi. Looking at him makes me sick.; Listening to his rhetoric's, makes me what to snuff him. The true cockroaches of our planet. Parasitic ideology at its best. Ho yes, the corporations love this guy psychopathic aptitude. That is his make up and he can not help it. Yes we should be very afraid of people like him. Nothing like the devil himself, calling someone else evil.
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