Pluralistic: "The Fagin figure leading Elon Musk’s merry band of pubescent sovereignty pickpockets" (07 Feb 2025)

Today's links

"The Fagin figure leading Elon Musk’s merry band of pubescent sovereignty pickpockets": Maureen Tkacik on the monstrous corporate raider running DOGE.
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It's pretty easy to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, actually: Just end all the private-sector profiteering.
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The first days of Boss Politics Antitrust: Selective enforcement in a target-rich environment.
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The housing emergency and the second Trump term: Weaponized shelter gave us Trump II; can we fix it despite Trumpism?
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The one weird monopoly trick that gave us Walmart and Amazon and killed Main Street: The Robinson-Patman Act is how we make sure companies aren't too big to jail nor too big to care.
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Surveillance pricing: They spy on you for many reasons, but also to rip you off.
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Why they're smearing Lina Khan: She wants you to have nice things and they don't (it's really that simple).
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The problem with economic models: Ideology disguised as math.
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What comes after neoliberalism? "There is no alternative" is really a demand, namely, "Stop trying to think of an alternative!"
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