Category Archives: Economy

NEW COLUMN: Big Tech’s Financial Terrorism And Social Excommunication (Part 1: The Problem)

Business, Economy, Individual Rights, Law, Paleolibertarianism, Political Economy, Regulation, Republicans, Technology

NEW COLUMN is “Big Tech’s Financial Terrorism And Social Excommunication (Part 1: The Problem).” It is currently on WND, Towhnhall.com, The Unz Review, and CNSNews.com

Excerpt:

Republican solutions to Big Tech tyranny do not begin to address financial de-platforming, the cancellation of citizen dissidents en masse, including the infringement of the right to partake in the public square and make a living.

In their weak case against Deep Tech (“Deep” to denote enmeshment with The State), Republicans are still defending only some speech on the “merits,” rather than all speech, no matter how meritless.

In a sense, the statist anti-trust bills—targeting especially Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google—being pushed by lawmakers are worse than useless.

The anti-trust impetus is misguided as it conflates corporate size with anti-competitive practices: the larger, the more monopolistic. However, reducing the size of an entity–a corporation–doesn’t necessarily alter its nature.

When a malignant cell divides, it doesn’t grow less potent. To the contrary, it innervates and enervates more spheres. Likewise breaking up Big Tech. Smaller malignancies metastasize and kill just as well.

The habitual failure of the representatives sent by Deplorables to D.C. to prevent cancellation en masse–the Orwellian nightmare from unraveling–cannot be understated. On the line is dissidents’ ability to speak, publish, partake in society; sell our cultural products, and transact financially over the country’s major online economic and social arteries.

No wonder the Tech crooks appear periodically on The Hill to make fun of the country’s comical representatives and their gullible, pliable voters. The richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, has no qualms about letting his delivery drivers, who, “operate under severe [app monitored] time constraints,” urinate in bottles for fear of losing their low-wage jobs.

Do you think the dim bulbs in Congress, posturing for the cameras, scare his ilk?

Do not forget that anti-trust busting or the repealing of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act are solutions the GOP had failed to implement when in control of both chambers and the presidency.

It was under Republican control that de-platforming (of a president, no less), the banning of legions of powerless dissident citizens, including detrimental financial de platforming, “occurred.”

Given this incontrovertible reality, The People have an obligation to quit the “my party, right or wrong” unconditional love, and demand the GOP work to unban ordinary, innocent folks, the crooked politicians be damned….

... READ THE REST. NEW COLUMN is “Big Tech’s Financial Terrorism And Social Excommunication (Part 1: The Problem).” It is currently on WND, Towhnhall.com, The Unz Review, and CNSNews.com

UPDATED: My solutions, presented next week, are not going to exist, as I like to say, in the arid arena of pure thought.

*Image courtesy WND.

By The Numbers: The Biggest Losers From Covid-19

COVID-19, Economy, Healthcare, Labor, Populism

The Economist on “The biggest losers from covid-19,” by the numbers:

… death rate from covid-19 in the neighbourhood with the most essential workers was more than twice as high as in the one with the fewest. A study in California found that people of working age saw a 22% increase in mortality from March to October 2020. But bakers saw mortality rise by 50%, and line cooks by 60%. One class of people stayed home in their pyjamas; others went into workplaces that probably killed them.

“DURING THE pandemic one part of the workforce did not get to wear pyjamas during the day or join in marathon sessions of ‘Tiger King’. The people known as ‘key’, ‘frontline’ or ‘essential’ workers had to be in public spaces and often in close proximity with their colleagues. Many died. …”

“…Describing a worker as ‘key’ is an arbitrary exercise (the label covers most journalists, for example). It usually includes occupations necessary to meet everyone’s basic needs—food, heating and transport, not to mention health care. Most such jobs cannot be done from home….”

“…The pandemic has reminded key workers that without them society would grind to a halt. …”

“…A study in Toronto found that the death rate from covid-19 in the neighbourhood with the most essential workers was more than twice as high as in the one with the fewest. A study in California found that people of working age saw a 22% increase in mortality from March to October 2020. But bakers saw mortality rise by 50%, and line cooks by 60%. One class of people stayed home in their pyjamas; others went into workplaces that probably killed them.”

MORE…

*Image courtesy The Economist

NEW ON YOUTUBE: Deep Tech As Pirates In Competition With The State

Business, Capitalism, Economy, Free Speech, Race, Technology

NEW ON YOUTUBE: Deep Tech As Pirates In Competition With The State:

… In which I share a few leftover thoughts about Deep Tech or Big Tech, as pirates in competition with the state, wishing their woke leaders could commandeer the ship of state. Certainly, when Facebook, Google, Twitter, Apple, and Amazon were growing up, they wanted to be government. Now they are!

Cryptocurrency’s Max Keiser Vs. Gold’s Peter Schiff

Argument, Debt, Democrats, Donald Trump, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Foreign Policy, Republicans, Russia

I’ve never known what to make of the financial expert RT has stuck by, Max Keiser of the eponymous Keiser Report.

I had been more of a Peter Schiff gold devotee. Thing is, the devotion was not returned. Most of Schiff’s clients, especially the small fry, fared poorly over time and seldom or never heard from the money maestro (who himself is very wealthy; broker fees and all).

Schiff is still calling “Bitcoin the latest iteration of fool’s gold and anybody buying it [the] ultimate fool.” Keiser, the choice on the business page of RT (Russia Today), is a Bitcoin guy. Bitcoin is holding the value of assets and then some. Gold? It has been fractionalized (spelling?)—fractional reserve banking has bad connotations!—and manipulated by the brokerages.

Speaking of RT (which once published this writer’s weekly column): Republicans, like the Democrats, speak of that TV station as an arm of the Kremlin (presumably nothing like CNN or MSNBC or WaPo which are never an arm of the Democratic Party).

In truth, Trump conservatives never defended President Trump’s conciliatory position toward Russia and Vladimir Putin. Rather, Republican defense of Trump’s correct stance toward Russia consisted of bolstering his alleged anti-Putin credentials, and boasting that he was ACTUALLY tougher on Russia than the Dems. So weak. So dumb.

It’s never about principled argument with Republicans. In their narrow little minds, the American Empire is supposed to war with Russia. That Trump came to power opposing that position was no reason to reexamine their asinine assumptions.

Since they invariably always fall in-line with neocon and neoliberal foreign-policy orthodoxy—Republicans and conservatives only ever tried to nudge Donald Trump toward America’s wrongheaded, Russia monomania.

*Image courtesy of RT.