Category Archives: The destruction of the middle class

Joe Firestone: Using Generational Warfare to Divert Attention from Oligarchy and Corporatism

Some of the favored children of the economic elite who have a public presence, work hard in their writing and speaking to divert attention from inequality and oligarchy issues by raising the issue of competition between seniors and millennials for “scarce” Federal funds.

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Planned Obsolescence Disguised as Innovation, Oligopoly Disguised as a Free Market, and the Enrichment of Oligarchs

We are delighted to feature this post from Roy Poses, who with his colleagues at Health Care Renewal, have been providing consistently high quality analysis of the often dubious practices and economics of the health care system.

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University of Southern Maine, Facing Organized Opposition from Students and Faculty, Rescinds Proposed Cuts

By Lambert Strether of Corrente. Good news, which I hope travels fast to other universities. Maine Sunday Telegram: University of Southern Maine President Theodora Kalikow on Friday rescinded the 12 faculty layoffs that had prompted weeks of protests, saying she’s open to alternative plans for finding up to $14 million in cuts. (I know! I […]

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Philip Pilkington: Misdirection – Galbraith on Thomas Piketty’s New Book on Capital

Yves here. The best review so far on Thomas Piketty’s new book Capital in the Twentieth Century is by Jamie Galbraith, and we’ve featured it in Links. But the article itself is long and a bit wonky, so Pilkington’s recap is a useful distillation of Galbraith’s piece.

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Cokie Roberts Picked a Fight With Alan Grayson on the TransPacific Partnership. Guess Who Won?

I’m clearly too feral to have the proper responses, but I’ve long considered Cokie Roberts to be too lightweight to be worth paying attention to. But since lightweight goes over well in many parts of America, Cokie still has a large following. And it’s separately worth paying attention to a fight she picked over Obama’s stalled trade deal, the TransPacific Partnership. The fact that people with popular followings are still defending it says the Administration remains keen to revive it, so opponents need to guard against becoming too complacent.

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