Fresh audio product
Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): September 28, 2017 Lukas Hermsmeier on German politics after the election (and AfD’s breakthrough) • Margaret Corvid on the UK Labour Party conference
My review of HRC’s book
My review of Hillary’s What Happened has just been posted on Washington Babylon.
Fresh audio product
Just posted to my radio archive (click on date for link): September 21, 2017 Michael Lighty of CNA/NNU on Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare, and on Sanders’ single-payer bill • Natasha Lennard, author of this article, on felony prosecution of Standing Rock protesters
Fresh audio product
Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): September 15, 2017 Andrew Cockburn, author of this article, on the Saudi involvement in 9/11 • Asad Haider, author of this article, on identity, Mark Lilla, and Ta-Nehisi Coates
Fresh audio product
Just posted to my radio archive (click on date for link): September 7, 2017 Christo Sims, author of Disruptive Fixation, on school reform and techno-fetishism • Christian Parenti, author of this article, on climate change and the threat to coastal cities
Rot: the private sector angle
In a post yesterday, I showed how public investment, net of depreciation, in the U.S. is barely above 0, meaning that fresh expenditures on long-lived assets like schools and roads are running just slightly ahead of the decay of existing infrastructure. You might think, given neoliberal orthodoxy, that the private sector is taking up the slack. It isn’t. The graph below shows net private nonresidential fixed investment as a percent of GDP. Net means less depreciation (the declining monetary value of existing assets over time, as they wear out and grow obsolete);… Read More
Why the USA is falling apart
If I were a debased purveyor of clickbait, I’d call this “Everything that’s wrong with America in two charts.” But I’m not, so I won’t. But still…. Hurricane Harvey is only the latest reminder that the U.S. infrastructure is falling apart—a situation that become more urgent as the climate crisis bites harder. Here’s a data series that goes a long way to explaining why. In simple English, the public sector is barely investing enough to keep up with normal decay, let alone doing anything to improve things. The series is net civilian… Read More
LBO News from Doug Henwood 