Category: Text

How inequality makes our government corrupt and our democracy weak

If we want a functioning democracy, we need to pay for a functioning public sector. (The Washington Post)

On his way to an early retirement from Congress later this week, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) has asked for a housing subsidy for members of Congress. “I flat-out cannot afford a mortgage in Utah, kids in college and a second place here in Washington, D.C.,” he said. Chaffetz showed no indication that he cared about affordable housing when he chaired the committee that oversees the District of Columbia, and he recently mused that if families can’t afford health insurance, maybe they shouldn’t buy new iPhones; he deserves no sympathy.
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Pelosi’s Pity Problem

It’s time for the Democratic leader to step aside. (Huffington Post)

On Tuesday, the Democrats lost a seat in a Georgia special election they were desperate to win. Following Democrat Jon Ossoff’s defeat ― and Democratic losses in four other special elections since Donald Trump became president ― calls are ramping up for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to step aside.
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America’s Amazon Problem

Jeff Bezos has created an empire that’s quickly raising political questions. (Huffington Post)

To understand the depth and breadth of Jeff Bezos’ ambitions for the company he built, type www.relentless.com into your browser. The domain Bezos registered in 1994 will redirect to Amazon, the company aptly, and ambitiously, nicknamed The Everything Store. He tells his shareholders that the company will act like an aggressive startup — that at Amazon, it is always Day One.
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Obama the Hamiltonian

Taking money from an investment bank in the form of a speaking fee is not immoral, it is eminently reasonable. (Huffington Post)

When former President Barack Obama decided to take $400,000 from a Wall Street investment bank for the first paid speech of his post-presidential career, he accelerated an important debate within the political establishment.
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The Evidence is Piling Up: Silicon Valley is Being Destroyed

Silicon Valley is the story of overthrowing entrenched interests through innovation. (Business Insider)

Children dream of becoming inventors, and scientists come to Silicon Valley from all over the world.

But something is wrong when Juicero and Theranos are in the headlines, and bad behavior from Uber executives overshadows actual innovation.

$120 million in venture funding from Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins, for a juicer? And the founder, Doug Evans, calling himself himself Steve Jobs “in his pursuit of juicing perfection?” And how is Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes walking around freely?
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Towards Democratic Regulation of the Airline Industry

It’s time for the public to recognize that there is no such thing as “Deregulation.” (Medium)

In the reaction to the the United Airlines fiasco, we see something very powerful. Americans are using words like corporate concentration and monopoly — and antitrust and regulation — to describe the reason David Dao was beaten. And how you ask a question, how you define a problem, leads to what kind of political system you will have.
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Big Corporations Are Making You Poorer

A wave of new research shows how as corporations get bigger, the share of money out there going to actual workers declines. (VICE)

Increasingly, the problem of corporate concentration, and in its more extreme form, monopoly, is returning to the American political debate. In 2016, senators from both parties lambasted the failure of the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice for failing to enforce anti-merger laws.
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The Hamilton Hustle

Why liberals have embraced our most dangerously reactionary founder.  (The Baffler)

As Donald Trump settles into the White House, elites in the political class are beginning to recognize that democracy is not necessarily a permanent state of political organization. “Donald Trump’s candidacy is the first time American politics has left me truly afraid,” wrote Vox cofounder Ezra Klein just before the election. Andrew Sullivan argued in New York magazine that American democracy is susceptible, “in stressful times, to the appeal of a shameless demagogue.” Paul Krugman wrote an entire column on why republics end, citing Trump’s violations of political norms. But if you want to understand the politics of authoritarianism in America, the place to start is not with Trump, but with the cool-kid Founding Father of the Obama era, Alexander Hamilton.

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After the Fumble

Having dominated the Democratic Party for years, the meritocrats now find themselves in a state of crisis. (The Nation)

Donald Trump is hated by large swaths of the country. Yet despite this fact, he is now president, and in the process of undoing the work of Barack Obama, a man whose elegance and intelligence rival that of any American president in the last 50 years. The results of the election have left liberals and Democrats scrounging for explanations—often those that don’t require accepting their share of the blame for one of the greatest electoral upsets in American history. According to some, it was Putin’s meddling in the election. Others point to a press that has been hostile to Hillary Clinton for decades; or to the various strains of racism and sexism in America that Trump exploited; or to the Republicans’ scorched-earth strategy against Obama, obstructing his policies and political appointments; or to the Electoral College, since Clinton won the popular vote by several million.
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