@jasonchenette.bsky.social
Reposted
Tech companies have transformed their platforms into digital tollbooths — buying up competition and then jacking up prices. Rhoda Feng argues that a modern antitrust movement is the way out: trib.al/YcOUcyI
The Internet’s Tollbooth Operators - The American Prospect
Tim Wu’s The Age of Extraction chronicles the way Big Tech platforms have turned against their users.
trib.al
December 10, 2025 at 9:00 PM
Tech companies have transformed their platforms into digital tollbooths — buying up competition and then jacking up prices. Rhoda Feng argues that a modern antitrust movement is the way out: trib.al/YcOUcyI
Reposted
In @nytopinion.nytimes.com
"Subsidies alone aren’t a solution; they simply buy us time," Zack Cooper writes. "The point is to use that time to build a system in which coverage is affordable because care is affordable."
"Subsidies alone aren’t a solution; they simply buy us time," Zack Cooper writes. "The point is to use that time to build a system in which coverage is affordable because care is affordable."
Opinion | The Health Care Debate We Really Need
The high cost of health care in America is suppressing wages, driving job losses and fueling inequality.
nyti.ms
December 11, 2025 at 4:40 AM
In @nytopinion.nytimes.com
"Subsidies alone aren’t a solution; they simply buy us time," Zack Cooper writes. "The point is to use that time to build a system in which coverage is affordable because care is affordable."
"Subsidies alone aren’t a solution; they simply buy us time," Zack Cooper writes. "The point is to use that time to build a system in which coverage is affordable because care is affordable."
Reposted
Same product. Same store. Same time. But on Instacart, different customers may see different prices.
My story on a fascinating new experiment from @groundwork.bsky.social & @consumerreports.org and how the idea of a single price is breaking down in the digital age:
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/b...
My story on a fascinating new experiment from @groundwork.bsky.social & @consumerreports.org and how the idea of a single price is breaking down in the digital age:
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/b...
Same Product, Same Store, but on Instacart, Prices Might Differ
www.nytimes.com
December 9, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Same product. Same store. Same time. But on Instacart, different customers may see different prices.
My story on a fascinating new experiment from @groundwork.bsky.social & @consumerreports.org and how the idea of a single price is breaking down in the digital age:
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/b...
My story on a fascinating new experiment from @groundwork.bsky.social & @consumerreports.org and how the idea of a single price is breaking down in the digital age:
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/b...
Reposted
Up next in our series on drivers of the affordability crisis: technology.
I wrote about AI bots are colluding with one another, anticipating consumer choices, and transferring wealth to the businesses that employ them. "That's why we're building all these data centers."
🧵
I wrote about AI bots are colluding with one another, anticipating consumer choices, and transferring wealth to the businesses that employ them. "That's why we're building all these data centers."
🧵
Prices in the Machine - The American Prospect
AI’s real contribution to humanity could be maximizing corporate profit by preying on personal data to raise prices. In fact, it’s already happening.
prospect.org
December 2, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Up next in our series on drivers of the affordability crisis: technology.
I wrote about AI bots are colluding with one another, anticipating consumer choices, and transferring wealth to the businesses that employ them. "That's why we're building all these data centers."
🧵
I wrote about AI bots are colluding with one another, anticipating consumer choices, and transferring wealth to the businesses that employ them. "That's why we're building all these data centers."
🧵
Reposted
Superlative investigation by Moe Tkacik.
A major chunk of the expansion in Obamacare the past few years comes out of Florida and Texas, where fraudsters scoured for low-income and homeless people to sell them janky "bronze" plans so they could collect subsidies.
A major chunk of the expansion in Obamacare the past few years comes out of Florida and Texas, where fraudsters scoured for low-income and homeless people to sell them janky "bronze" plans so they could collect subsidies.
The Obamacare Boiler Room - The American Prospect
Perhaps no Florida health care scam has so concisely illustrated the burning need to rethink our broken health care system.
prospect.org
November 18, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Superlative investigation by Moe Tkacik.
A major chunk of the expansion in Obamacare the past few years comes out of Florida and Texas, where fraudsters scoured for low-income and homeless people to sell them janky "bronze" plans so they could collect subsidies.
A major chunk of the expansion in Obamacare the past few years comes out of Florida and Texas, where fraudsters scoured for low-income and homeless people to sell them janky "bronze" plans so they could collect subsidies.
Reposted
"Faced with this dilemma—where do you get a trillion dollars quick?—OpenAI is getting ready to run hat in hand to the taxpayer for subsidies, like every great Ayn Randian self-created entrepreneur, pulling themselves up by their bootstraps." prospect.org/2025/11/07/o...
OpenAI Is Maneuvering for a Government Bailout - The American Prospect
For artificial intelligence to ever pencil out, some truly enormous revenue streams will be required. And if you need trillions of dollars for data centers forever, there’s only one entity to turn to:...
prospect.org
November 7, 2025 at 4:26 PM
"Faced with this dilemma—where do you get a trillion dollars quick?—OpenAI is getting ready to run hat in hand to the taxpayer for subsidies, like every great Ayn Randian self-created entrepreneur, pulling themselves up by their bootstraps." prospect.org/2025/11/07/o...
Reposted
We know that the Trump administration has pretty much ended bank regulation. But they've also quietly walked away from bank supervision, the obscure work of checking for risk that prevents financial collapse. Our friends at @revolvingdoordc.bsky.social have a nice reported look at this:
Making Banking Supervision Suck Again - The American Prospect
Bank supervision consists of two main prongs: risk management and compliance. On the compliance side, consumer protection laws are being enforced less than at any time since at least the Great Recessi...
prospect.org
October 31, 2025 at 2:29 PM
We know that the Trump administration has pretty much ended bank regulation. But they've also quietly walked away from bank supervision, the obscure work of checking for risk that prevents financial collapse. Our friends at @revolvingdoordc.bsky.social have a nice reported look at this:
Reposted
NEW: Paul Newby, a born-again Christian, has turned his perch atop North Carolina’s Supreme Court into an instrument of political power.
Over two decades, he’s driven changes that have reverberated well beyond the borders of his state.
By @dougbockclark.bsky.social
Over two decades, he’s driven changes that have reverberated well beyond the borders of his state.
By @dougbockclark.bsky.social
“Biblical Justice, Equal Justice, for All”: How North Carolina’s Chief Justice Transformed His State and America
Paul Newby, a born-again Christian, has turned his perch atop North Carolina’s Supreme Court into an instrument of political power. Over two decades, he’s driven changes that have reverberated well be...
www.propublica.org
October 30, 2025 at 11:32 AM
NEW: Paul Newby, a born-again Christian, has turned his perch atop North Carolina’s Supreme Court into an instrument of political power.
Over two decades, he’s driven changes that have reverberated well beyond the borders of his state.
By @dougbockclark.bsky.social
Over two decades, he’s driven changes that have reverberated well beyond the borders of his state.
By @dougbockclark.bsky.social
Reposted
And here is our story on this, from Harold Meyerson, who describes it as surgically designed to rebut any opposition, while providing just a start at rebalancing the horrific wealth inequality that has caused so many of our recent challenges.
prospect.org/2025/10/23/u...
prospect.org/2025/10/23/u...
October 23, 2025 at 8:45 PM
And here is our story on this, from Harold Meyerson, who describes it as surgically designed to rebut any opposition, while providing just a start at rebalancing the horrific wealth inequality that has caused so many of our recent challenges.
prospect.org/2025/10/23/u...
prospect.org/2025/10/23/u...
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ICYMI, on the Kaiser strike:
"Kaiser concedes that the unions and management are just $300 million annually apart at most in negotiations, and the company is sitting on $67.4 billion in reserves, up from $40 billion just four years ago."
prospect.org/2025/10/20/2...
"Kaiser concedes that the unions and management are just $300 million annually apart at most in negotiations, and the company is sitting on $67.4 billion in reserves, up from $40 billion just four years ago."
prospect.org/2025/10/20/2...
As Kaiser Workers Strike, ‘Not-for-Profit’ Is Sitting on $67 Billion - The American Prospect
Forty-five thousand workers at Kaiser Permanente—ranging from nurses to therapists to pharmacists—are on strike in the country’s largest labor action of 2025.
prospect.org
October 20, 2025 at 2:15 PM
ICYMI, on the Kaiser strike:
"Kaiser concedes that the unions and management are just $300 million annually apart at most in negotiations, and the company is sitting on $67.4 billion in reserves, up from $40 billion just four years ago."
prospect.org/2025/10/20/2...
"Kaiser concedes that the unions and management are just $300 million annually apart at most in negotiations, and the company is sitting on $67.4 billion in reserves, up from $40 billion just four years ago."
prospect.org/2025/10/20/2...
Reposted
It got almost no attention but six months ago Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent ditched the beneficial ownership rules that facilitate tax evasion and oligarchy by simply choosing to not enforce them. Bob Kuttner has that story.
prospect.org/economy/2025...
prospect.org/economy/2025...
How Scott Bessent Enables Oligarchy
The Treasury secretary has gutted the most important anti-corruption reform legislation in a generation—the 2020 Corporate Transparency Act.
prospect.org
October 7, 2025 at 2:12 PM
It got almost no attention but six months ago Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent ditched the beneficial ownership rules that facilitate tax evasion and oligarchy by simply choosing to not enforce them. Bob Kuttner has that story.
prospect.org/economy/2025...
prospect.org/economy/2025...
Reposted
Kimmel’s defiant return highlights one of the most disturbing dynamics of Trump II, that so many people in positions of leadership are chickenshit frauds who would rather fold in advance than put up anything resembling a fight www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
September 25, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Kimmel’s defiant return highlights one of the most disturbing dynamics of Trump II, that so many people in positions of leadership are chickenshit frauds who would rather fold in advance than put up anything resembling a fight www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
Reposted
From me: It was 20 years ago that Citigroup described America as a plutonomy, an economy by and for the rich. We now have stats to show this has gotten worse: the top 10% are doing 50% of the retail sales, and this masks the pain from below.
prospect.org/economy/2025...
prospect.org/economy/2025...
The Plutonomy Is Still Going Strong
For the last 20 years, analysts have known that this is an economy by and for the rich.
prospect.org
September 18, 2025 at 1:44 PM
From me: It was 20 years ago that Citigroup described America as a plutonomy, an economy by and for the rich. We now have stats to show this has gotten worse: the top 10% are doing 50% of the retail sales, and this masks the pain from below.
prospect.org/economy/2025...
prospect.org/economy/2025...
Reposted
There's a tendency to grade Trump economic policies in theory and not in practice. Only the reality matters and it's been generally been bad. I tried to set the record straight:
prospect.org/economy/2025...
prospect.org/economy/2025...
Judge the Actually Existing Trump Economy, Not the Theory
Equity stakes, loophole closures, and protecting domestic industries might make sense in someone else’s hands. Not from a president with no strategy or plan.
prospect.org
August 28, 2025 at 1:29 PM
There's a tendency to grade Trump economic policies in theory and not in practice. Only the reality matters and it's been generally been bad. I tried to set the record straight:
prospect.org/economy/2025...
prospect.org/economy/2025...
Reposted
A clever new study "confirms that the country’s tax code is regressive, not progressive, at the very top," @annielowrey.bsky.social reports. American billionaires "pay lower tax rates than many middle-class professionals":
How the Richest People in America Avoid Paying Taxes
A clever new paper puts concrete numbers to the taxes paid by members of the Forbes 400.
bit.ly
August 25, 2025 at 5:45 PM
A clever new study "confirms that the country’s tax code is regressive, not progressive, at the very top," @annielowrey.bsky.social reports. American billionaires "pay lower tax rates than many middle-class professionals":
Reposted
COVID revisionists see the public-health response to the pandemic as a failure. But they fail to get the full picture—and that might leave us even less prepared for the next pandemic, Rogé Karma argues.
COVID Revisionism Has Gone Too Far
If the center and left succumb to the view that “nothing worked,” no one will remain to defend sensible public-health measures the next time a pandemic comes around.
bit.ly
August 21, 2025 at 5:45 PM
COVID revisionists see the public-health response to the pandemic as a failure. But they fail to get the full picture—and that might leave us even less prepared for the next pandemic, Rogé Karma argues.
Reposted
moderate Senate Dems' cargo cult around the filibuster is a big reason why we are in this mess prospect.org/politics/202...
How Moderate Senate Democrats Enabled Trump’s D.C. Takeover
Many have warned that allowing D.C. to remain a disenfranchised colony would lead to disaster. They were right.
prospect.org
August 22, 2025 at 12:55 PM
moderate Senate Dems' cargo cult around the filibuster is a big reason why we are in this mess prospect.org/politics/202...
Reposted
Economic growth in most sectors is anemic, but there are two that are doing well: Big Tech and big banks. But in a weird twist, these sectors are increasingly turning against each other in regulatory fights. From @ddayen.bsky.social:
Silicon Valley Godzilla vs. Wall Street Mothra
The only two sectors thriving in Trump’s economy are increasingly sparring with each other.
trib.al
August 7, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Economic growth in most sectors is anemic, but there are two that are doing well: Big Tech and big banks. But in a weird twist, these sectors are increasingly turning against each other in regulatory fights. From @ddayen.bsky.social:
Reposted
Public education seems to be the only issue where even the GOP is bucking the Trump agenda, so seems like something Dems would want to lean into. And yet party elites have nothing for us but *data dashboards,* *workforce preparation* & *competition* Blech open.substack.com/pub/educatio...
Missing the Boat
With a few notable exceptions, Democrats keep getting education wrong
open.substack.com
August 1, 2025 at 1:17 PM
Public education seems to be the only issue where even the GOP is bucking the Trump agenda, so seems like something Dems would want to lean into. And yet party elites have nothing for us but *data dashboards,* *workforce preparation* & *competition* Blech open.substack.com/pub/educatio...
Reposted
From me: We've been getting all Gilded Age-y for a while in America, but the writers are getting too lazy with the references now. A transcontinental railroad merger? Rotten borough-style gerrymandering? Tariffs? A Lochnerian court? The 1800s are back.
prospect.org/power/2025-0...
prospect.org/power/2025-0...
The Second Gilded Age Is Resembling the First
It’s the return of rotten boroughs, railroad barons, and constant graft.
prospect.org
July 31, 2025 at 1:22 PM
From me: We've been getting all Gilded Age-y for a while in America, but the writers are getting too lazy with the references now. A transcontinental railroad merger? Rotten borough-style gerrymandering? Tariffs? A Lochnerian court? The 1800s are back.
prospect.org/power/2025-0...
prospect.org/power/2025-0...
Reposted
2/ As reservoirs shrink and glaciers melt, people have increasingly drilled into a largely ungoverned cache of fresh water underground.
And as @abrahm.bsky.social explains, our sinking ground is actually a foolproof sign of this supply disappearing.
And as @abrahm.bsky.social explains, our sinking ground is actually a foolproof sign of this supply disappearing.
“Staggering” Water Loss Driven by Groundwater Mining Poses Global Threat
A new study finds that freshwater resources are rapidly disappearing, creating arid “mega” regions and causing sea levels to rise.
www.propublica.org
July 26, 2025 at 1:46 PM
2/ As reservoirs shrink and glaciers melt, people have increasingly drilled into a largely ungoverned cache of fresh water underground.
And as @abrahm.bsky.social explains, our sinking ground is actually a foolproof sign of this supply disappearing.
And as @abrahm.bsky.social explains, our sinking ground is actually a foolproof sign of this supply disappearing.
Reposted
How would you like to have a lobbyist that goes country to country demanding that they eliminate taxes and regulations on you specifically? Now how would you like that lobbyist to be the President of the United States?
On this and other things, Trump is the ultimate globalist, Big Tech's valet.
On this and other things, Trump is the ultimate globalist, Big Tech's valet.
Trump Is Big Tech’s Personal Lobbyist
The administration is working hard to eliminate taxes and regulations on Silicon Valley firms—even in other countries.
prospect.org
July 24, 2025 at 1:33 PM
How would you like to have a lobbyist that goes country to country demanding that they eliminate taxes and regulations on you specifically? Now how would you like that lobbyist to be the President of the United States?
On this and other things, Trump is the ultimate globalist, Big Tech's valet.
On this and other things, Trump is the ultimate globalist, Big Tech's valet.
Reposted
Unlike many of the Medicaid cuts in the Republican tax and spending bill, which are delayed until after the midterm election, ACA premium spikes due to expiration of enhanced premium tax credits will hit January 1, 2026.
New: Early reports from ACA insurers show the biggest premium increases in years, driven by:
*An expected sicker pool of enrollees if enhanced premium tax credits are allowed to expire at the end of this year
* Tariffs
* Higher health care costs
www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/indivi...
*An expected sicker pool of enrollees if enhanced premium tax credits are allowed to expire at the end of this year
* Tariffs
* Higher health care costs
www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/indivi...
Individual market insurers requesting largest premium increases in more than 5 years - Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker
Early indications are that individual market insurers will be increasing premiums in 2026 by more than they have since 2018, the last time policy uncertainty contributed to sharp premium increases. Ac...
www.healthsystemtracker.org
July 18, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Unlike many of the Medicaid cuts in the Republican tax and spending bill, which are delayed until after the midterm election, ACA premium spikes due to expiration of enhanced premium tax credits will hit January 1, 2026.
Reposted
Such a shame, Republicans cleverly disguised all their cuts to the health care system, there's nothing we can do about it—
Sorry just getting in that millions of people are going to be asked to pay 20-25% more for insurance and they'll be getting the notices in 90 days
www.wsj.com/health/healt...
Sorry just getting in that millions of people are going to be asked to pay 20-25% more for insurance and they'll be getting the notices in 90 days
www.wsj.com/health/healt...
Exclusive | Obamacare Insurers Seek Double-Digit Premium Hikes Next Year
Some enrollees could be hit with increases of more than 20% because of federal changes and higher health expenses.
www.wsj.com
July 18, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Such a shame, Republicans cleverly disguised all their cuts to the health care system, there's nothing we can do about it—
Sorry just getting in that millions of people are going to be asked to pay 20-25% more for insurance and they'll be getting the notices in 90 days
www.wsj.com/health/healt...
Sorry just getting in that millions of people are going to be asked to pay 20-25% more for insurance and they'll be getting the notices in 90 days
www.wsj.com/health/healt...