Our justice system is prominently featured in our culture as a source of fair-handed justice. Everyone stands before the law on an equal footing. The justice system in reality is a gigantic fraud of inequality and lifelong punishment. Our police lead the world in the rate at which they kill civilians. The promise of a fair trial before a jury of our peers is denied over 90% of the time. Coerced plea bargaining with the —>> read more –>>

Friday November 6, 2020 – Election Results Still in the Waiting Room As I wait for the electoral machinery to complete its work I am struck by how this election has confirmed that we are in a deep mess with nothing in sight to set us on a more productive path. First, there is the astonishing scene of very nearly half the votes cast being in favor of Trump and no substantial change in the —>> read more –>>

A recent study of the Boston area real estate market reveals continuing discrimination against people of color. A video post.

monopoly, antitrust, trust, economy, US economy, Zephyr Teachout, Break’em Up, competitive markets, monopoly market, economic concentration, big tech, chickenization

Capitalism features a structural drive to create and use external costs to increase profits. Pollution of the earth is the most obvious and visible; there are many others including injuries and death for workers.

Introducing the In Depth series on the actual workings of capitalism. Commentary on economic theories.

Trump and his Republican enablers – the Trumplicans –  are responsible for the pandemic in the US and the nearly 200k deaths that have occurred to date. Comparing the US response with the rest of the world makes it clear that this catastrophe is the direct result of Trumplican policies.

Wondering What White Supremacy Looks Like? (click on image to download the report) The Boston Globe reported on July 1, 2020 on the results of a study by Suffolk University Law School, “Qualified Renters Need Not Apply” (link downloads the PDF of the study) from the Globe report: An undercover investigation released Wednesday found that Black people posing as prospective tenants in Greater Boston were shown fewer apartments than whites and offered fewer incentives to —>> read more –>>

It is absolutely clear that Trump and Republicans (Trumplicans) are to blame for the state we find ourselves in. Trump and Republicans can talk all they want about “Wuhan virus” and other racist slurs. There is no other explanation for the tremendous surge in COVID-19 cases across the southern belt of the US. It is their policies that have created this monster. There has been no coherent Federal policy to drive an effective response to —>> read more –>>

Monetary reparations for African Americans may accomplish very little to drive basic changes in the five pillars of the system of white supremacy: housing, education, healthcare, employment, and the judicial system.

Anonymity is a plague in our lives, public and private. The web is filled with anonymous material authored by anonymous creators. Facebook is filled with millions of anonymous fake people who are really, it frequently turns out,  paid actors for various political and economic actors. Our local web-based social platforms are filled with people saying all sorts of stuff, much interesting and much also annoying, lacking in factual content, and sometimes downright vicious. Here in —>> read more –>>

If you are struggling to get your head around how racism works you will probably find it helpful to have a general framework as a guide. This one hour lecture from 2017 features an overview by Brown University Professor Tricia Rose of the structure of racism and how it works in the US (approx. 29 minutes). Then follows a case study by Samuel Rosen, senior researcher, How Structural Racism Works Project at Brown, of how —>> read more –>>

The May 21, 2020 Issue of the London Review of Books contains a review article, “The Corrupt Bargain” by Columbia U. Professor Eric Foner1. It is a wonderful review of the history of this peculiar institution, The Electoral College. In the midst of his survey of the history of the electoral college system he notes: A candidate can carry a dozen or so large states by small margins and capture the presidency while trailing far —>> read more –>>

Tightrope provides a well-written description of the American crisis through personal stories and hard data. Unfortunately it falls flat in its call for action.

The rich and corporations win even during a global pandemic.

Back in the early and mid ‘70s both Karen and I worked in various machine shops and other industrial locations. Trichloroethylene (TCE) was used on a daily basis to clean metals parts and other materials. I remember a large tank of slowly roiling hot TCE at Stevens Arnold, Inc. in South Boston. I would use it several times a day to clean parts. Every week or so I would be detailed to drain the tank, —>> read more –>>

Perhaps the ceaseless clamoring for our attention by marketers is reaching its final stage of saturation in which our brains simply shut down and go on attention strike.

Essay explores the grim reality of life in one small corner of America within the broader landscape of the bottom 90%.

In an area with dozens of empty store fronts and several hundred thousand sq ft of empty space, a new strip mall is approved for construction. A rational market??