Category Archives: Income disparity

The “Fixing Capitalism” Headfake

Why most plans to create a kinder, gentler capitalism fall way short.

Payday Lenders Offering Installment Loans to Evade Regulations – But They May Be Even Worse

When is a payday loan still pretty much a payday loan? When it’s an installment loan with annual interest rates over 100%.

Misunderstanding Volcker

A reappraisal of Volcker, who was more hostile to workers and less hard on financiers than the press would have you believe.

Using History to Understand Hidden Wealth in the UK

Between 1920 and 1992, English elites concealed 20-32% of their wealth. Accounting for hidden wealth eliminates one-third of the observed decline of top 10% wealth share over the past century.

The Geography of EU Discontent

The EU’s flyover, meaning areas in economic decline, are also its hotbeds of discontent and anti-EU sentiment.

Financialization of the U.S. Pharmaceutical Industry

A takedown of the pharmaceutical industry’s assertion that it need to price gouge so it can invest in R&D. Profits go almost entirely to various forms of looting.

US Targets Wage-Repression Model in Mexico, Demands Inspections, Industry Has a Cow

A proposed provision in the so-called “NAFTA 2.0” to increase autoworker wages in Mexico is raising hackles south of the border.

Why Hospitals Never Have Enough Nurses: The Explanatory Power of “Prasad’s Law” of Wealth Concentration

Nurses, or more accurately, nurse staffing levels demonstrate a central bad incentive in American medicine.

Tucker Carlson Tears into Vulture Capitalist Paul Singer for Strip Mining American Towns

Tucker Carlson takes on the feared vulture capitalist Paul Singer as an examplar of how hedge funds are destroying American communities.

The Debt Delusion

A short take on John Week’s new book, The Debt Delusion, and why it matters.

Wealthy Countries’ Approach to Climate Change Condemns Hundreds of Millions of People to Suffer

Emerging economies want large scale subsidies from their richer brethren to pay for them to move to green energy sources.

What This Election Proves Is the Need for Epoch Making Change

The upcoming UK election will usher in major change. But will it be change that benefits ordinary people?

America’s War Exceptionalism Is Killing the Planet

War is America’s new normal, and it’s deadly.

AOC Schools Mayor Pete on Why Means Testing Free College Is Such a Bad Idea

AOC rebukes Pete Buttigieg on his plan to means test expanded funding for college tuition.