Category Archives: Free markets and their discontents

The Dark Enlightenment: The Tech Oligarch Ideology Driving DOGE’s Destruction

How DOGE isn’t just tearing down institutions but also laying the groundwork for an experimental new kind of authoritarian rule.

Digital imperialism: How US Social Media Firms Are Using American Law to Challenge Global Tech Regulation

An update on the hard-fought battle between foreign states trying to regulate social media platforms and the broligarchs.

Medicine Is Under-Politicised in the UK

A further discussion of how societal problems that impact medicine and health policy are largely kept out of political discourse.

Fed Not Buying Trump Administration Economic Snake Oil but Stands Largely Pat While Depicting Higher Inflation, Lower Growth Prospects

The Fed has noticed that Trump’s policies are chilling growth while stoking inflation, but is not yet ready to react strongly.

How an Israeli-US Startup Wants to Make Geoengineering Profitable

Forget contrails. Here’s a geoengineering initiative that should give cause for pause.

New York’s Economy Teeters on a Precipice

New York as an example of the effects of economic undertow created by the Trump Administration.

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.