Tuesday, June 17, 2025

Why Is CalPERS Aggressively Promoting Internet Voting Despite Experts Like the National Institute of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Saying “Hell No”?

More proof that CalPERS has no shame.

Links 9/9/18

Prisoners Strike Across America & Canada to End Penal Enslavement

Prison strike that began on August 21 is scheduled to end today, the forty-fifth anniversary of the Attica uprising and rebellion took place in the New York state prison, with prisoners protesting slave labor conditions and other injustices.

Dengue on My Mind: Spending on ‘Diseases of Poverty’ Not Enough to Create Effective Vaccines

A drop-off in funding for vaccines for ‘diseases of poverty’ is another consequence of the financial crisis. A recent study laments bleak prospects for breakthroughs on malaria, tuberculosis, dengue, and other diseases. Climate change is expanding the range where these diseases may be contracted.

Links 9/8/18

Marshall Auerback: Central Bankers as ‘Dealers of Last Resort’

In their 21st-century role as counterparty/dealer/insurer of last resort, central bankers must not simply use their balance sheets indiscriminately to provide a liquidity backstop during the downturns. They must embrace this counterparty role as an umpire, rather than an enabler.

2:00PM Water Cooler 9/7/2018

Today’s Water Cooler: Open thread.

Financial Times’ FundFire Unambiguously Confirms Our Reporting of Misrepresentations by CalPERS CEO Marcie Frost

Financial Times’ FundFire reporter Fola Akinnibi has written three stories this week that referred to misrepresentations made by CalPERS CEO Marcie Frost during and after her hiring by the giant pension fund. His latest report, CalPERS CEO Misstated Educational Background During Hiring Process (no online version) not only flatly calls out Frost’s falsehoods, but also […]

Plastic Watch: First Ocean Cleanup Array to Launch Tomorrow

The first Ocean Cleanup Array is scheduled to launch from San Francisco Bay tomorrow. Target: the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a major ocean plastic accumulation zone more than three times the size of France.

Links 9/7/18

The Divided Psyche of Privilege

In the Invisible Knapsack, Peggy McIntosh describes the process by which she began theorizing white privilege. We look at her narrative in depth, and try to see what it tells us about how privilege concepts were first constructed and what this means for us today.

How Supreme Court Pick Brett Kavanaugh Could Return US Policy to the Era of Robber Barons

Understanding Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s potential impact on corporate regulation and the climate means looking back all the way to 1890, to the era of Lochner v. New York and the robber barons.

More Evidence that Private Equity Funds Fail as Investment: No Outperformance v. Stocks, Higher Volatility

Yet more data confirming that private equity is not what it is cracked up to be unless you do it in house.

Democrats Can Block the Kavanaugh Nomination If They Want To

By Gaius Publius, a professional writer living on the West Coast of the United States and frequent contributor to DownWithTyranny, digby, Truthout, and Naked Capitalism. Follow him on Twitter @Gaius_Publius, Tumblr and Facebook. GP article archive  here. Originally published at Common Dreams If Democratic votes put Kavanaugh on the Court, the nation will be harmed […]

2:00PM Water Cooler 9/6/2018

Today’s Water Cooler: Open thread.