Taxing the rich revisited

Back in October, I wrote about how taxing the rich, while a nice start, won’t be enough to fund a serious welfare state. That would require taxing the broader population seriously and we need to be honest about that. Until we are, Reagan will continue to rule from beyond the grave. Most of that post was about the details of financing—the cheapness of our own welfare state and what it would take to get to something more Scandinavian. But the political angle deserves more attention. That was developed nicely the other day… Read More

No robo

You can hardly look at Twitter without reading something about the impending AI revolution: robots are coming for your job. I’m a skeptic. By that I don’t mean to argue that IT and AI and all the other abbreviations and acronyms aren’t changing our world profoundly. They are. Tech affects everything—work, play, love, politics, art, all of it. But the maximalist version, where robots, equipped with artificial intelligence, are going to replace human workers, is way over done. No doubt they will replace some. But not all. Back in 1987, ancient history… Read More

Fresh audio product

Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): February 20, 2020 Colleen Eren, author of Bernie Madoff and the Crisis, on why the Ponzi schemer deserves release from prison (op-ed here) • Jamieson Webster psychoanalyzes money and left melancholy (interview with Fiona Alison Duncan here)

Fresh audio product

Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): February 13, 2020 Yasha Levine on Chrystia Freeland, Ukrainian Nazis, and the proxy war against Russia • Lizzie O’Shea, author of Future Histories, on fake techno-utopianism and imagining a better future

Fresh audio product

Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): February 6, 2020 Sofia Japaridze on Congressionally protected wage theft in the libertarian paradise of post-Soviet Georgia • Margaret Kimberley, author of Prejudential, on the long, oppressive relationship of presidents to black people