Category Archives: Free markets and their discontents

DOGE Going Dark as Evidence of Fabrications, Destructive Results and Citizen Anger Rises

OGE is turning out to be as reckless and wantonly destructive as its fiercest critics warned.

MAHA Three Card Monte? Decision to Axe Advisory Groups Could Spell Trouble for US Food Safety

Concerns that RFK Jr.’s MAHA may set back food safety, particularly with regard to pathogens.

The Price of Monopoly and Oligopoly Power: Why Rising Markups Hurt Innovation and Widen Inequality

More evidence of the cost of monopoly and oligopoly power.

Neoliberalism and a Healthy Population Are Incompatible

It can’t be said often enough that neoliberalism is unhealthy for children and other living things.

The Perceived Costs of Business Cycles and Inflation

Quelle surprise! People really hate the uncertainty that comes with business cycles. This bodes ill for the Trump regime.

Labour Is Becoming the Enemy of the Vulnerable and the Disabled

Labour goes all in for cutting social spending, first for the disabled, almost certainly with the excuse that it’s needed to fund rearming.

Charting the Uncharted: The (Un)intended Consequences of Oil Sanctions and Dark Shipping

An estimate of the magnitude of dark-shipped oil suggests that removing sanctions would raise, not lower, oil prices.

Climate Change: Insuring the World of Tomorrow

Leading edge conventional wisdom on the role of insurance as climate disasters increase underestimates the severity of the problem.

How Scientists Can Adapt to a New Normal

In the wake of attacks on the research enterprise, scientists need to focus on protecting its fragile infrastructure.

Trump Presents the Gravest Threat to Social Security in Its 90-Year History

Cuts to the Social Security Administration are cuts to Social Security. Raise hell with your Congresscritters about this looting

Checking In on the Democrats’ Search for the “Good Billionaires”

What role is elite reconciliation under Trump playing in the Democrats’ silence on the looting of country? And in the meantime, where shall the rest of us turn?

“SOTU” Reactions: Business Press Turning on Trump as Tariffs Whack Markets, Look Set to Increase Inflation, Approval Falls and Even Republicans Getting Restive

Despite the Republican applause during Trump’s State of the Union speech, the business press is sounding alarms.

The GENIUS Act: Setting the Stage for a Federal Bailout When Stablecoins Become Insolvent

Why the GENIUS Act does not live up to its pretenses of making stablecoins safe, thus setting the stage for a Federal bailout.