Facebook started by making it possible to see what your friends were doing. But that was never going to make much money for the company.
Facebook used to be Friendsly
Category: Capitalism
The Goodness of People
Are people basically good? Trump has pulled aside the curtain allowing another side to show, but are there underlying reasons for that other side?
Communism Bad!
Capitalism is much better than communism. Except sometimes.
It’s Tax Day!
Or at least it should be Tax Day. But COVID-19, combined with our crazy, complicated system for filing our taxes, has caused Tax Day to be delayed for three months.
A great article about the miserable annual ritual of filing your taxes.
The NPR program from which I got this conversation.
The numbers about hours and dollars come from here.
Here’s an article about the 20-year effort by TurboTax (Intuit) to keep tax filing complicated.
People vs. Pandemic, Round 9
It seems that many of the rich and famous have become tone deaf, out of touch with rest of us. Of course, they always were out of touch, but this pandemic is showing just how much.
People vs. Pandemic, Round 5
We need to help people who are losing their income because of the coronavirus crisis.
People vs. Pandemic, Round 3
People who claim to be free-market capitalists are always happy to get a taxpayer funded bailout.
Here are some links showing the buyback and bailout numbers: For the 2001 bailout, see https://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/21/rec.congress.airline.deal/
For the $45 billion stock buyback, see https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/18/america-airlines-bailout-shareholders-coronavirus
or this, which puts the buyback at $47 billion. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/airlines-and-boeing-want-a-bailout-but-look-how-much-theyve-spent-on-stock-buybacks-2020-03-18
People vs. Pandemic, Round 1
I have no doubt that People will win the fight against the coronavirus Pandemic, but People will suffer some heavy blows before they finally triumph. Some of the blows will be inflicted by the pandemic, but others will be inflicted by leaders who are incompetent, uncaring, callous.
The Gig Economy
Is the gig economy empowering or just a race to the bottom? Or is it a way for people who don’t need the income to get some social contact in our individualistic society.
Living Globally
While most of us live within defined borders, the very rich can ignore country borders, moving their money and their lives to where it most benefits them.
