Tuesday, July 1, 2025

Links 10/24/2024

‘Hate and Lust for Vengeance Are Passed Like Poison from One Generation to the Next’

Vengeance is coming home.

The Economics of Medicine: Personal Reflections

More examples of how medicine, at least as practiced in the US, is going off the rails.

2:00PM Water Cooler 10/23/2024

~ Today’s Water Cooler: Politics, Syndemics; 2024 Opinion-havers opine, two weeks out; Trump media blitz (Rogan; Carlson); Kamala and Biden’s decline (her view vs. the donor’s view); Boeing satellite explodes; Ortberg seeks culture change ~

The Great Game of Logistics

Logistics corridors play an increasing role in the New Cold War. Do workers lose no matter who wins? 

Links 10/23/2024

Heterodox Approaches Will Provide Answers to the Multiple Cascading Crises of Our Future

The old normal is rigid and destructive to humans and the planet. Heterodox ideas offer some hope, but will they be sufficient?

Big and Small Businesses Are Nothing Like Each Other

An important yet oft-ignored point: big and small businesses are wildly different, and that matters from a policy perspective.

The Dark Side of AI-Powered Synthetic Biology

Another warning about the dangers of AI-supercharged synthetic biology.

My Life So Far in Writing Bits and Bytes (Partly, at Least)

How I learned to finish what I started.

2:00PM Water Cooler 10/22/2024

~ Today’s Water Cooler: Politics, syndemics; Trump and the Blob; Kamala’s beliefs, if any, unknown, perhaps not knowable; Wall Street iffy on contract agreement; restructuring begins?

The Medici’s Quiet Coup: How the Wealthy Bend Politics without Shifting Institutions

This column studies the circumstances under which a relatively open political system can be corrupted by its confrontation with concentrated wealth.

Links 10/22/2024

Mexico Escalates Its War on Obesity by Declaring National Ban on Junk Food Sales in Schools

Mexico is the leading consumer of soft drinks in the world with an average consumption of 163 litres per person per year — 40% more than the US in second place. Child and adult obesity are off the charts. 

How Corporate Vehicles Conceal Crime and Chicanery

Financial vehicles designed to conceal wealth and questionable activity fuel corruption and crime while allowing perps evade accountability