A lot of this is going to depend on how the media handles it.

And I’m sure she knows that, but how do you think the process of change begins? It’s a good thing progressives weren’t so pessimistic during the late 19th century, because it took a good 20-30 years of sustained activism to put an end to the Gilded Age.

The problem is that markets don’t like volatility and uncertainty. Rising interest rates and political turmoil (Trump’s tariffs, Brexit, Russia, China, etc.) are rocking the boat in major ways, along with the knowledge we’re approaching a ten-year bull market next year. Now, throw all this in together with corporate…

To expand on this, it’s interesting to note that very early Christian theologians described Jesus as “ugly and small,” and they even considered such unattractiveness to be part of the prophecy—all part of the “suffering Messiah.” However, late Roman theologians came to decide that, since Jesus was “perfect,” then he…

The Board of Directors should ideally exist to rein these people in. The fact that they’ve become little more than a group of “yes” men and women is problematic.

See, if money were not a consideration, I could see myself interested in these luxury cars, whereas those sedans bore me to tears. I can entirely see why people would choose a boring crossover over a boring car.

I’m going to put it this way: the presidency, in many ways, is overrated. The fact that we’re often willing to sacrifice really good senators and representatives for a “top job” that is overwhelmingly supposed to be about signing bills that these senators and representatives pass goes to show that our priorities are…

The centrists mentioned; Bloomberg, Steyer and Cuban would do their best service putting their vast wealth into the 50 state plan for state houses (to break the coming gerrymandering attempts after the 2020 census) and providing the flood of money needed to flip the Senate.

In many ways, it’s a modern take on what Hannah Arendt pointed out in 1963 regarding “the banality of evil.” We like to think that only “evil people”—meaning always “other people”—do terrible things, but what if the capacity for evil was inherent in almost anyone?

I’m of two thoughts on your post here:

This is, sadly, exactly the point, though: it’s called “opportunity hoarding.” Those in power don’t want working class people to get these valuable positions; they want to give them all to family, friends, cronies—fellow upper middle class types—those who can afford to take an important, low-wage position while…

Michigan itself is a fantastic example as to why legislative term limits are bad: it basically turns the legislature into a revolving door of corporate lobbyists running for office and politicians angling for lobbyist jobs while in office to secure a career after their term is up. Even globally, you often see term…

I hesitate to post quotes, because so many of these are falsely attributed, but I consider this one appropriate for McCaskill regardless of who said it:

I’d say low self-esteem is a lot of this. The kind of person to find themselves embroiled in unrequited love tends to be somewhat neurotic (and so, really, is the kind of person who would write a letter to an advice column).

I don’t think researchers entirely know yet. It could be the higher caffeine content, but I think it’s come out that even decaf has a laxative effect, so it would hint that it’s a currently unknown substance in the coffee itself.

See, I’ve found I’m quite sensitive to the caffeine in coffee—I can drink it in the morning, then find myself still bouncing off the walls at midnight, so for that reason, I don’t drink it. However, tea doesn’t seem to have much of an impact on me, and my “armchair scientific hypothesis” is that the lower caffeine in…

The GOP would love nothing more than to eliminate the income tax and replace it with a national sales tax; if you Google it, it’s been a topic of discussion stretching back at least 20 years. I’ve even encountered one article advocating for a 23-30% national sales tax, and, interestingly enough, it also argues at the…

In practice, it’s about striking a balance. Laissez-faire neoliberalism breeds instability, but so does heavy-handed state control of the market.

The last paragraph says it all: private equity. These corporate vultures purposely load an acquisition with a heavy amount of debt these companies didn’t originally generate with the absolute expectation of an eventual bankruptcy—thus destroying the company, but also wiping out the debt. Just imagine if you could…

The reality is that the Democratic establishment, like the Republican establishment, are neoliberals. They may ultimately want a slightly less laissez-faire form of capitalism than Republicans, but it’s not much to differentiate the two, so that’s why our elections are usually about the “culture wars,” while the two…