Month: March 2023

We’ve argued here numerous times that the state of the US healthcare system is an outrage. We spend almost double per capita what every other developed country spends, except Switzerland, which comes in at 70% of our per capita spending. An NPR report this morning (3.29.2023) (‘Live free and die?’ —>> read more –>>

In the last couple of years articles have begun to appear with titles like: When Private Equity Becomes Your Landlord Where Have All the Houses Gone: Private Equity, Single-Family Rentals, and America’s Neighborhoods Meet the Latest Housing-Crisis Scapegoat Wall Street has purchased hundreds of thousands of single-family homes since the —>> read more –>>

The recent ruckus about the likelihood that the Chinese government might access data from American TikTok accounts is perhaps well-placed. They might also use their access to TikTok to spread propaganda and other malicious information. Certainly, the simple solution suggested by TiKTOk of storing all US user data on servers —>> read more –>>

China spends more on importing computer chips – $260 billion in 2017 – than it does importing oil. President Biden’s recent bans on the export of American-made chips to China as well as a ban on companies throughout the world using American technology to export to China intends to make —>> read more –>>

Recently I listened to the first episode of the podcast City of the Rails. About 30 minutes in, the author Danelle Morton interviews the historian Richard White about what actually happened when railroads were built across the North American continent in the 1860′ and ’70s. (opens the podcast at the interview) —>> read more –>>

I can’t seem to forgo comedians. Sometimes a laugh brings brief relief. Stumbled on this typical brief rant (3 minutes) from Lewis Black. A bit of context. This is shortly after the election of Obama. He had run against John McCain in 2008. These are the politicians he is referring —>> read more –>>

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Here is a book review I posted on markorton.com 3.24.2001 When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor – book review When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor Book Review: William Julius Wilson, When Work Disappears: The —>> read more –>>

Original posting – 3.6.2023 Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, has a new book Poverty, by America set to be released shortly. He has written a piece for the NYTimes, “Why Poverty Persists in America” that is worth a read. He poses this question —>> read more –>>

Today, March 14, 2023 is Equal Pay Day “This date symbolizes how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year.” Women have to work a fifth of a year longer to make it to the same pay as men. The wage gap —>> read more –>>

Catching up on reading The New Yorker brought me to the January 16th issue and Jill Lepore’s “What the January 6th Report Is Missing”. As noted elsewhere here, I am somewhat possessed by the question of how we can explain that 74 million Americans voted for Trump in 2020 after —>> read more –>>