Category Archives: Banana republic

CDC Reversal on Masks, Vaccinated as Covid Spreaders, While Boosters Look to Be Coming Late and Not Hugely Effective

If you weren’t worried about Covid, you should be, between rising infections and evidence of CDC incompetence.

Aducanumab: The Drug That Breaks Medicare?

Biogen plans to price-gouge for the barely-effective Alzheimer’s drug aducanumab to such a degree that it could bust Medicare.

Tom Englelhardt: Our Empire in Decline

Trying to understand America’s self-and-other-destructive empire fetish.

U.S. Vaccine Diplomat Cajoles Producers to Support Low-Cost Off-Shore Vaccine Hubs

The Biden administration should push the WTO to waive COVID vaccine patents before heading off for vacation and encourage U.S. producers to ramp up low-cost vaccine production worldwide.

Andreas Malm Versus Property: ‘Because Nothing Else Has Worked’

Is going after property the only viable option for containing climate damage? Andreas Malm thinks so.

Gurbir Grewal Takes Helm as SEC Director of Enforcement, Breaking BigLaw Stranglehold

The new SEC director of enforcement takes up his post today, the first in this position since 2005 to enter without strong recent corporate ties.

Beware of World Economic Forum/Gates UN Food Systems Summit Trojan Horse

The Gates Foundation and the WEF are steamrolling normal UN processes as part of a campaign to discredit sound agroecology practices.

Private Equity Now Buying Up Primary Care Practices

Private equity is doing yet more damage to heath care as it buys up primary care practices en masse.

Reconstructing US-China Relations

Can the US and China be friends, or at least not so hostile? Jeffrey Sachs has some ideas.

Haiti Ruling Families Create and Kill Monsters

How Haiti is a fiefdom for gangs and foreigners pilfering the country’s natural resources.

Hospital ‘Trauma Centers’ Charge Enormous Fees to Treat Minor Injuries and Send People Home

The trauma center ripoff provides more evidence that the medical industry is primarily in the business of exploitation, not care.

California Senate Shoots Down CalPERS’ Private Debt Secrecy Bill; Board Hissy Fit Reveals It Never Questioned Staff Misrepresentations

CalPERS is no longer being given the benefit of the doubt by the legislature, and can’t handle a request to ‘splain itself.

Biden Targets Non-Compete Agreements, Which Restrict the Job Opportunities of Millions of Low-Wage Workers

Biden goes after non-compete agreements….but will this effort make a difference?

When Counterculture Goes Mainstream: A Dispatch from the 2021 Bitcoin Conference

How Bitcoin hard-core loyalists see the future of their project.