economy – American Delusions

What’s Wrong With Inequality – the word?

November 26, 2021 Comments Off

Ban inequality – the word, the naked word, from our political rhetoric. Inequality is everywhere around us in the media sphere as well as in our day-to-day conversations. Amongst progressive folk one can drop the word like an F bomb and summon up agreeable outrage in one’s interlocutors without saying --->> read more -->>

Video Post: The Monopolization of the Economy and Zephyr Teachout’s “Break’Em Up”

October 27, 2020 Comments Off

An introduction to monopolies and book review of Zephyr Teachout’s new book Break’Em Up: recovering our freedom from big ag, big tech, and big money, All Points Books, 2020. What are monopolies? How monopolized (concentrated) is the US economy Examples of how monopolization works and its effects The history of --->> read more -->>

“How Structural Racism Works” – Tricia Rose and Samuel Rosen – recently noted

June 7, 2020 Comments Off

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 --->> read more -->>

Tightrope – Americans reaching for hope by Kristof and WuDunn – book review

May 1, 2020 Comments Off

Kristof and WuDunn’s book, Tightrope – Americans Reaching for Hope, spent some weeks on bestseller lists. Kristof is a well known reporter and writer for the NYTimes. It centers around the town of Yamhill OR and the people that Kristof grew up among. The stories of industrial decline, increasing inequality, --->> read more -->>

How the Rich and Big Corporations Feed Off Us During the Pandemic

May 1, 2020 1

[1]When Congress passed the second pandemic stimulus bill, the CARES Act, in late March, a key feature was the Paycheck Protection Program(PPP). This was $349 billion described as targeted to small businesses (in the world of the Federal government small businesses have long been defined as having fewer than 500 --->> read more -->>

The Coming End of Branding and Logos….. the shutdown

February 14, 2020 Comments Off

Human beings have always been attracted to images. From early cave paintings to traveling displays of giant canvases by the Hudson River school of painters to TV and on now into the ubiquity of images in the digital era, we pay attention. Marketers have known this and exploited it to --->> read more -->>

Recently Noted – “Across America, working-class people are dying of despair”

January 17, 2020 Comments Off

“Who Killed the Knapp Family?” by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn appeared in the Sunday 1/12/2020 NYTimes. This essay which is adapted from a newly published book by the same authors, Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, explores the grim reality of life in one small corner of America, Yamhill, OR --->> read more -->>

Real Estate Development – a local story –

December 16, 2019 Comments Off

We generally don’t report or comment on local affairs here at AmericanDelusions. But, the craziness of real estate development in Greenport, the town that surrounds our hometown of Hudson, illustrates a downside of our market centered economy working in an environment where whatever the market wants it gets. The Greenport Planning --->> read more -->>

Nobel Prize Winners Critique Markets – Duflo and Bannerjee

October 27, 2019 Comments Off

It will be no surprise to regular readers of AmericanDelusions that we are skeptical of markets and even more so claims made for markets. So, it was a pleasure to read the recent op-ed piece by Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, winners of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics, “Economic --->> read more -->>

The Monopolization of America video by Robert Reich

Recently Noted – Robert Reich on breaking up Big Tech – a limited view

June 26, 2019 Comments Off

Robert Reich is continuing his series of brief YouTube videos on progressive view of the economy. This is a good introduction to the arguments for re-invigorating our protections against monopolies. However, the problem is much more widespread than just the high tech industry. We’ve written about this broader phenomenon in --->> read more -->>

economy

Monopoly and Facebook – as told by Facebook’s co-founder

May 9, 2019 Comments Off

The May 9th NYTimes has an Op-Ed essay, It’s Time to Break Up Facebook, by Chris Hughes, the co-founder of Facebook, calling on the government to break up that company. The essay is very thorough in describing the current monopoly behavior of Facebook, the deleterious effects on competition and vigor in --->> read more -->>

Recently Noted – Robert Reich: Socialism for the Rich, Capitalism for the Rest – a new video presentation

April 8, 2019 Comments Off

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Recently Noted – Sugar In Our Diet – the John Oliver Analysis

March 18, 2019 Comments Off

In our continuing effort to find varied sources to illustrate the power of marketing and the costs of unregulated capitalism we return to John Oliver’s show Last Week Tonight for his segment on sugar in food. The food industry continues to put sugar in nearly every processed food and fights --->> read more -->>

Recently Noted – Robert Reich video ”The Monopolization of America”

March 7, 2019 1

We have written earlier (for example our article The Monopolization of America) about the increasing concentration of market power In the hands of just a few corporations. This is a phenomenon occurring throughout the US economy (really more broadly across the globe). Here is an 11 minute review of --->> read more -->>