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Great article!

i’ve been saying something similar, though nowhere near as eloquently for the last 15 years, at least. senator obama ran on a platform that sparked the idea in me that we may see change we so desperately needed in order for a change in the social order of power but fell far short, as we know now.

I may have mentioned it in a comment on your last article, but my mantra has been, ‘we won’t ever see the change we so desperately need until things are at rock bottom for a majority. change is hard and the we tend to avoid it as much as possible. things will have to reach an utterly dire state before we can start to pick up the pieces.’

we may be seeing the beginnings of this. people are questioning the celebrity lifestyle, the ‘elite’ rich and why money has been so concentrated, and why through all of the the ‘elite’ rich have the gall to ask us to contribute even more to help those around us.

I have no idea at this point if we can ever get this turned around in a sense of everything going back to ‘normal’ in any kind of timeframe that would slow the build up of tensions were seeing, but if the current power structure has any sense of continuing on they way things were they’re going to have to figure out a way to get us there quickly.

my dream would be for an FDR to come around again. monopolistic practices are running rampant, have been since reagan, and it’s pushing us to the brink. maybe it’s time to break through that dam, or we’re all going to end up fine dining at Taco Bell and using the three seashells.

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The biggest mistake of all time was moving away from regulated monopolies. AT&T is of course the prime example. For most of the 20th century we had the very best telephone system in the world. We had the best equipment in the world thanks to Bell Labs. And everybody had service, everywhere at reasonable rates. AT&T made a good regulated profit, paid a solid dividend and employed millions with very nice pensions

But, yahoo’s in DC had to “fix” things and break up the ‘monopoly’ so we could have more competition. They they fell asleep at the wheel and let all the baby bells merge and re-emerge and spin off and so on. Meanwhile, jobs have been lost, pensions aren’t what they once were and the infrastructure is weak.

Now we have a system in which not only phones but everything else communications wise is totally controlled by two free wheeling giants, Verizon and (guess who) AT&T. And we now have some of the slowest communications (internet) in the world at some of the highest prices and no longer does everyone get what they need - rural America in particular.

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Good read, thanks! In second block quote, wouldn't it also be reasonable to say that these institutions have been organized by globalists who assume that the gold standard is efficiency. They base their decisions on a model of comparative advantage that doesn't assign any value to national security. So it makes sense to make masks and ventilators in China, until it doesn't (I think Chamath said something like this recently).

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Re: Pandemic Anti Trust

"break apart corporations with a certain market share threshold" - 1) If it isn't written well Amazon could game this fairly easily by redirecting buyers to third party sellers in its marketplace. 2) There should be a lead time of a year or so for the reestablishing of certain markets before breaking apart the dominant players in those markets. Some market share may be temporary due to competitors being temporarily shut down.

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Re: Business/government

From a New Yorker article on the 1975 NYC near bankruptcy: "a developer named Richard Ravitch, who had been serving as a minister without portfolio for the governor." ... "Rubenstein was a sort of unpaid booster for New York City who was making his living doing public-relations work for many of the city’s real estate developers and unions."

Business people have always worked with various levels of US governments. Is it more or less today, at the federal level? And as you say, who is ultimately controlling it - the businesses, or the governments?

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Re: Contact tracing

"global contact tracing system for the Coronavirus." - Not only do I not have a smartphone, but the few times I leave the house to go shopping I'm no longer bringing my feature phone. Touching the phone prior to decontaminating myself after coming home is another vector for coronavirus transmission that I don't need. I don't know how unusual this is these days, but it may be less unusual than it was a few months ago.

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Re: Martha Stewart

1) internet connectivity - have, thanks DARPA and early 1990s government regulators and small ISPs

2) tablet - don't have any

3) laptop - I use it solely as a desktop replacement (still, it's much easier moving from my workplace during the shutdown than a desktop)

4) cloud for storage - only use it for email because some companies (yahoo, google) made POP downloads that much more difficult

5) google search - thanks duckduckgo, I switched a month or so ago and find it a fine replacement to Google.

6) iPhone - don't have a smartphone

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