Category Archives: Ridiculously obvious scams

US Strategy for Great Power Competition: More Graft and Hope for Wonder Weapons

Venture capital and private equity are playing a larger role in the military-industrial complex leading to even more corruption, lack of accountability and the swallowing up of young minds by the Silicon Valley money pit.

Yellen and Biden Administration Incompetence: Bullying and Entitlement, Rather Than Making a Case, Here Regarding China Overproduction

Yellen made a complete hash of the question of Chinese overcapacity, a real problem unlikely to sort itself out nicely.

The Medicare Maze

Eileen Appelbaum takes a critical look at Medicare Advantage, exposing how it falls short of its cost-saving and quality-enhancing promises.

ACA Plans Are Being Switched Without Enrollees’ OK

Unauthorized enrollment or plan-switching is emerging as a serious challenge for the ACA, also known as Obamacare.

NYC AI Chatbot Touted by Adams Tells Businesses to Break the Law

The Microsoft-powered bot says bosses can take worker’s tips and that landlords can discriminate based on source of income.

US Scheme to Challenge Russian Dominance in Nuclear Energy Faces Major Obstacles – Including an Overreliance on Russia

Plans suffer from design flaws, cost overruns, and a reliance on Russia for multiple stages of the nuclear fuel cycle.

Matt Taibbi: “Meet the AI-Censored? Naked Capitalism”

Matt Taibbii took a good look at Google’s AI censorship of this site and deemed it “an early, scary test case for mechanized suppression.”

Financial Times Tells CalPERS Not to Go Further Into the Private Equity Haunted House

The Financial Times debunks private equity flim-flammery even as CalPERS and others sign up for more.

Google Censorship: AI Run Amok Threatens Demonetization Over a Navigation Page with No Ads, An Article on a Foreign Policy Best-Seller Deemed Anti-Vaxx, and More Flagrant Errors

Google tries to censor this site based on a systematically flawed AI review. How many others will be victims of bad algos?

Private Equity Buying Up Accounting Practices. What Could Go Wrong? The Health Industry Gives Some Ideas

Private equity is setting out to hoover up accounting practices. The sorry experience in health care says there is cause for pause.

Experts: Negotiating Big Pharma’s Prices Won’t Stifle Innovation—They Don’t Use the Money to Innovate!

Physician-scientist Fred Ledley and economist William Lazonick debunk Big Pharma arguments against Medicare drug price negotiation

Ultra-Processed People in an Ultra-Processed World

The scientific, health, and political debate over the true cost of ultra–processed has just gone mainstream….which is late.

Financial Crises and Tax Havens

Tax havens not only facilitate tax evasion and corruption in ‘normal times’, they also harbour funds during economic crises, slowing down recovery.

How Should the Government Negotiate Medicare Drug Prices? A Guide for the Perplexed

How some key points on negotiating Medicare drug prices under the Inflation Reduction Act were oddly left open, arguably much too open.

War Is Bad for You — And the Economy

How war spending serves as a cover for the distribution of pork at the expense of American needs.