Mammon category archive
The Crypto Con Artists 0
Emma talks with Molly White, crypto and tech industry researcher, about the Trump family’s participation in the crypto con and about the larger con that is crypto.
You can visit Molly White’s website.
Aside:
Emma uses the phrase “cryto industry.” I guess, if an industry can be based on thin air and maintained by wishful thinking, that might be a valid phras–oh, never mind.
Suffer the Children 0
As we know, that’s not scripture. That’s a Republican family value. To illustrate:
Former USAID staffer Karen Van Roekel, writing at the Des Moines Register, is dismayed at the mean for the sake of mean in the Trump maladministration’s decision to shut down that agency. A snippet (emphasis added):
The Key to the Club 0
In the course of a longer article about Donald Trump’s plan fever dream to evict Palestinians from Gaza so at to turn it into a Trump resort–and the cruelty, avarice, and cold-heartedness inherent in said play–Tom Moran mentions, almost in passing, the lesson that Trump’s dupes, symps, and fellow travelers have learned. It’s quite simple, really.
Flatter Trump, and you’re in the club. Challenge him, and you’re dead meat.
This New Gilded Age 0
Via Truthout, Sarah Anderson runs the numbers. Here’s just one number:
The gap between CEO compensation and median worker pay at Starbucks hit 6,666 to 1 last year.
In other words, to make as much money as their CEO made in 2024, typical baristas would’ve had to start brewing macchiatos around the time humans first invented the wheel.
More numbers at the link.
The Reverse Robin Hood Party, Reprise 0
David notes that Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” seems to be somewhat unpopular with the populace.
The Reverse Robin Hood Party 0
Michael in Norfolk makes the case that Reagan’s trickle-on economics is still exacting its toll, as Republican policies make the rich richer and the poor more desperate.
Stray Thought 0
As I watch the ads for sports gambling on my telly vision, I can’t help but wonder whether the prospect of a new Black Sox scandal might be more than a mere farfetched fantasy.
Emoluments 0
Farron runs the numbers.
The Privatization Scam 0
Emma talks with Whitney Wimbish about how private prisons are profiteering from Donald Trump’s campaign against brown people immigrants.
Facebook Frolics 0
At SFGate, Stephen Council reports on the Zuckerborg’s turn to AI in its quest for assimilation. Council is not sanguine.
Here’s a tiny bit from his piece.
His point that people need more friends gels with recent research into the ill-health effects of isolation. But Zuckerberg’s idea of patching over loneliness with algorithmic avatars is an ugly vision of the world: a purposeful unraveling of the social fabric that gives us community, culture, accountability and love. We need to refuse this vision. The solution to not having enough friends is — needs to be — making more friends. More care and responsibility for our neighbors, not bubbles of solitude.
This New Gilded Age 0
In addition to all the other stupid, petty, and destructive things this is, how is this not also theft of labor?
“History Does Not Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes”* 0
Robert Reich looks how the Trump maladministration maladministrates and hears a rhyme from a long time ago:
“His Ministers, generals, mistresses, and courtiers soon found out his weak point, namely, his love of hearing his own praises. There was nothing he liked so much as flattery, or, to put it more plainly, adulation; the coarser and clumsier it was, the more he relished it. That was the only way to approach him; if he ever took a liking to a man it was invariably due to some lucky stroke of flattery in the first instance, and to indefatigable perseverance in the same line afterwards.”
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*Mark Twain.
Fly the Fiendly Skies 0
How is this not price-gouging?
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
Rebecca Watson bemoans the exploiting of staged debates, with a particular reference to the Jubilee Youtube channel, which has been in the news lately. She argues that they are devolving from a discussion of issues to a cage-match spectator sport in the pursuit of clicks and likes and lucre.
Or you can read the transcript.
This New Gilded Age 0
Starbucks workers at the “happiest place on Earth” are not at all happy with their employer. A snippet:
Suffer the Children 0
Once again, that’s not scripture. That’s Republican policy.