For many years, Chile’s economic growth and transition to democracy have made it the poster boy for neoliberalism. The current wave of protests highlights the extreme inequality caused by 40 years of neoliberal policies.
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The Other Side of Trump’s Shadow Diplomacy: After Ukraine, Quid Pro Quo in Italy Too?
The White House asked the Italian government for support in its “investigation on the investigators” to prove the existence of a Democratic plot against Donald Trump in 2016. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte secretly cooperated and then received a crucial public endorsement from Trump in the midst of a political crisis. The next episode of the impeachment story will be staged not in Kyiv, but in Rome.
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Bethany McLean’s Weekend Reading List: Pension Problems, Funky Accounting, and Elon Musk
Corruption, lobbying, corporate malfeasance, and frauds: a weekly unconventional selection of must-read articles by investigative journalist Bethany McLean
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SolarCity’s Troubles Fuel the Religious War Around Tesla’s Future and Elon Musk
Musk has been saying for years that his solar business will be similar in size to Tesla’s car business, but this is not likely to happen soon. An internal email produced in a lawsuit filed by Tesla shareholders confirms that Musk knows SolarCity will have a negative cash flow impact for years.
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How “Paperwork Sludge” Keeps Americans From Enjoying Fundamental Rights
Every year, Americans spend 9.78 billion hours filling out federal paperwork. These administrative burdens can make it difficult or impossible for people to vote or to speak freely.
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Monopolization in the Name of Privacy: Google Is Slowly But Steadily Closing Its Advertising Ecosystem
In attempting to address legitimate privacy concerns, Google could be trying to monopolize surveillance.
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The Intersection of Privacy, Data, and Competition
The issues around technology, data, and privacy are complicated, but solving them is less tricky that many companies would have Congress believe.
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Bethany McLean’s Weekend Reading List: Cheap Credit, WeWork, and Fracking
Corruption, lobbying, corporate malfeasance, and frauds: a weekly unconventional selection of must-read articles by investigative journalist Bethany McLean
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The Harvard Admission Lawsuit Decision Does Not Answer the Main Question: What Are Top Universities For?
A judge ruled this month that Harvard does not discriminate against Asian-American applicants, according to its own criteria. But what kind of students do those criteria select? Kate Waldock and Luigi Zingales discuss the Harvard case in a new episode of Capitalisn’t.
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The Humbling of Mark Zuckerberg
Zuckerberg’s Congressional testimony this week illustrated just how much Facebook’s top brass still underestimate the public anger against the company. Congress, however, is still too focused on publicly berating Facebook instead of actually regulating it.
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Vertical Media Mergers Are a Serious Threat to Freedom of Speech
Antitrust regulators should stop mergers where a firm owning the means of transmission acquires a provider of content. The people that own the pipes shouldn’t also own the water. As the Supreme Court stated in 1945, “Freedom to publish is guaranteed by the Constitution, but freedom to combine to keep others from publishing is not.”
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If Journalists Want to Save Journalism, They Should Stop Asking Google for Money
A new report claims Google has been using its Google News Initiative to stage a “media takeover” and reveals the increasing influence of the company on newsrooms.
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