As the saying goes, in America everyone is entitled to a second chance — especially con artists. Herewith the 6 rules for getting a second (or third or fourth) chance to sell a giant con: 1. Market a mundane idea as “disruptive.” Adam Neumann, the founder of WeWork, hyped his office-sharing startup as the first “physical social network.” In reality it was nothing more than what you’d find in any coffee shop with customers at their laptops, but Neumann made it sound so revolutionary — “disruptive...
Aug 22, 2022•7 min
Hello friends, On Saturdays I have a cup of coffee with my colleague Heather Lofthouse and we invite you to join us and chime in with comments. She asks questions that many of you also want to discuss. Heather is the Executive Director of Inequality Media Civic Action, and my former student. We cover both the highlights and lowlights, and aim to provide a larger context for the news. I’m somewhat on vacation this week but we did our best to record at a distance, cups of joe in hand. (Please forg...
Aug 20, 2022•12 min
I was born on June 24 in 1946 to Mildred Freshman Reich and Edwin Saul Reich at the Mercy Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania. That was ten days after Donald John Trump was born to Fred Trump and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump at the Jamaica hospital in the borough of Queens, New York. It was 12 days before George Walker Bush was born to Barbara Pierce Bush and George Herbert Walker Bush at Grace-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut. And 56 days before William Jefferson Blythe III, whose name wa...
Aug 19, 2022•6 min
The Clean Air Act of 1970 authorized the government to regulate air pollution. The Inflation Reduction Act, which Joe Biden just signed into law, allocates more than $300 billion to energy and climate reform, including $30 billion in subsidies for manufacturers of solar panels and components, wind turbines, inverters, and batteries for electric vehicles and the power grid. Notice the difference? The Inflation Reduction Act is a large and important step toward slowing or reversing climate change....
Aug 18, 2022•8 min
Tomorrow, Wyoming Republicans will determine the fate of Representative Liz Cheney — whom Trump has targeted for revenge ever since she criticized him for inciting the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Six days after that attack — when no other Republican in the House or Senate was willing to rebuke Trump — she said on the House floor: “The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this wo...
Aug 15, 2022•9 min
On Saturdays I have a cup of coffee with my colleague Heather Lofthouse, and we press record on my laptop so you can listen and chime in with any comments. Heather is the Executive Director of Inequality Media Civic Action, and my former student. She asks me about the economic and political happenings of the past week (this past one was a doozy). We cover both the highlights and lowlights, and aim to provide a larger context around what we’re all being presented with (or not) in the news. We oft...
Aug 13, 2022•14 min
Notably, the Inflation Reduction Act didn’t attract a single Republican vote in the Senate. (And at least one Democratic senator — Kyrsten Sinema — made sure its tax provisions wouldn’t raise tax rates on rich individuals.) Why? We talk a lot about money in politics, but there’s a huge and growing difference between the big money (campaign donations of $1 million or more), most of it pouring into Republican coffers and small money (individual donations of $200 or less), mainly pouring into the D...
Aug 12, 2022•5 min
Senator Joe Manchin has been Congress’s largest recipient of money from natural gas pipeline companies. He just reciprocated by gaining Senate support for the Mountain Valley pipeline in West Virginia and expedited approval for pipelines nationwide. Senator Krysten Sinema is among Congress’s largest recipients of money from the private-equity industry. She just reciprocated by preserving private-equity’s tax loophole in the Inflation Reduction Act. We almost take for granted big corporate money ...
Aug 11, 2022•8 min
Republican candidates for Senate, House and governorships in the upcoming midterms have been filling the airwaves today with baseless assertions that the FBI search of Mar-a-lago shows the politicization of the Justice Department and undermines the rule of law. Republicans ranging from third-ranking House Republican Elise Stefanik to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy have issued statements brimming with outrage and accusation. Last night, the RNC sent out a fundraising text : “THIS IS NOT A D...
Aug 10, 2022•4 min
The Labor Department reported Friday that U.S. employers added 528,000 jobs in July , more than twice the number analysts had expected. And the rate of unemployment dipped to just 3.5 percent. Undeniably good news. But this good news also means the Federal Reserve will almost certainly keep raising interest rates, believing the job market is now too “tight.” This is not good news. The Fed is wrong: The job market is not too tight. In fact, the share of Americans working or actively looking for w...
Aug 09, 2022•5 min
The original justification for elite higher education in the United States was to train the future leaders of American democracy. As Charles W. Eliot, who became president of Harvard in 1869, noted, Harvard existed to inculcate the ideals of “service and stewardship.” Since then, Harvard has produced eight US presidents; Yale, five. (Stanford can boast Herbert Hoover, if it feels compelled to do so.) Elite universities have also produced a disproportionate number of senators and representatives ...
Aug 08, 2022•6 min
Each Saturday I grab coffee with my colleague Heather Lofthouse, and we turn on my laptop mic so you can listen in and then provide your two cents in the comments. Heather is the Executive Director of Inequality Media Civic Action, and my former student. She asks me questions about the economic and political happenings of the past week. We cover both the highlights and lowlights, and aim to provide a larger context around what we’re all being presented with (or not!) in the news. She’s Gen X and...
Aug 06, 2022•16 min
Yesterday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban addressed a crowd of thousands of American admirers in Dallas, Texas, at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Orban described Hungary and America as “twin fronts” in a struggle against globalists, progressives, communists, and “fake news.” To fully comprehend Orban’s influence on the Trump Republican Party, you need to understand the Orban has stripped Hungary of its democratic institutions and demonized immigrants. But that’s not ...
Aug 05, 2022•6 min
Today, I want to talk about Kansas. Not about its corn as high as an elephant’s eye, nor about Dorothy and Toto trying to find their way home, but about Kansas as the geographic and Republican center of America, Kansas as the vintage Norman Rockwell core of America, Kansas as what the Republican Party was before being hijacked by Newt Gingrich and then mugged by a New York real estate con artist. I’m moved to do so because on Tuesday the good people of Kansas voted against a ballot measure that ...
Aug 04, 2022•5 min
Defamation law may turn out to be America’s most important weapon against rightwing media lies. On Friday, Infowars star Alex Jones’ parent media company, Free Speech Systems, filed for bankruptcy in the midst of a defamation damages trial underway in Austin, Texas. Jones, you may recall, had portrayed the Sandy Hook school shooting massacre as a hoax involving actors, aimed at increasing gun control. Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose 6-year-old son, Jesse Lewis, was among the 20 children an...
Aug 02, 2022•8 min
TONIGHT I’m talking with Stephanie Ruhle, on MSNBC’s 11th Hour, about the biggest difference between Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema — the so-called “carried interest loophole” that rewards big bucks to private equity managers. This week, the spotlight once again will be on Manchin and Sinema (dubbed “ Manchinema ” by the Washington press corps as the two blocked much of Biden’s agenda) because it’s the Democrats’ last chance for a large package — Manchin has agreed to $790 billion — on the clima...
Aug 01, 2022•6 min
My informal weekly coffee with Heather Lofthouse (Executive Director of Inequality Media Civic Action and my former student), discussing the past week: The Fed’s decision to raise interest rates yet again — wrong medicine? Recession — should we be worried? Joe Manchin’s change of heart — will it stick? Merrick Garland’s inevitable decision of whether to prosecute Trump — by when? Plus a special request from Heather — if you're willing to take a stab at composing a very short theme song for this ...
Jul 30, 2022•15 min
Has Joe Manchin really, finally seen the light? Word is that President (sorry) Senator Manchin has agreed to roughly $433 billion in new spending, much of it focused on lowering energy costs, increasing clean energy production, and reducing carbon emissions. Part of the Manchin-approved deal would raise $739 billion in taxes over the next decade — including a new minimum tax on corporations and additional funding to help the Internal Revenue Service pursue tax cheats. 1. A few grounds for skepti...
Jul 28, 2022•9 min
Today, Donald Trump returns to Washington — his first visit since leaving in disgrace after January 6 — to deliver the keynote address for the America First Policy Institute’s “America First Agenda Summit.” The purpose of this confab is to give Trump some policy creds as he prepares to announce a 2024 run for re-election. Brooke Rollins, one of the organizers of the Institute and the Summit (who was domestic policy adviser in Trump’s White House) says “having worked next to him for almost three ...
Jul 26, 2022•6 min
Friends, On June 30, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case called Moore v. Harper. With all the controversial decisions handed down by the Court this term, its decision to take up this case slid under most radar detectors. But it could be the most dangerous case on the Court’s upcoming docket. You need to know about it. Here’s the background: Last February, the North Carolina Supreme Court blocked the state’s Republican controlled general assembly from instituting a newly drawn congressional d...
Jul 25, 2022•7 min
My informal weekly coffee with Heather Lofthouse (Executive Director of Inequality Media Civic Action and my former student), discussing the past week: The just-finished series of January 6 hearings. Why more Republicans still want Trump to run in 2024 than Democrats want Biden to run in 2024. Why 195 House Republicans voted against a bill to protect contraception (and why every American male over the age of 40 now needs a vasectomy). Trump’s outtakes on January 7, 2021. The Hawley Trot. Please ...
Jul 23, 2022•18 min
Friends, One final point about the Select Committee on January 6 as it concludes this series of hearings. Its members and staff deserve our heartfelt thanks for a job (although not over) extraordinarily well done. So much has gone so wrong with so many aspects of our government and other institutions we rely on that I think it’s important to recognize and salute this sort of excellence. And courage. Liz Cheney alone deserves a medal. Bennie Thompson handled the committee with grace and thoughtfu...
Jul 22, 2022•3 min
On Tuesday, in a House Democratic primary contest to represent a predominantly Black middle-class district north and east of Washington, DC., Glenn Ivey, a former state’s attorney for Prince George’s County, defeated Donna Edwards, the first Black woman elected to the House from Maryland. (Edwards left the seat to run unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2016 and had hoped to return.) Progressive groups backed Edwards, but television and radio were saturated with ads questioning her willingness to p...
Jul 22, 2022•5 min
Tonight is the eighth and last of the scheduled public hearings of the House Select Committee on the January 6 attack (the committee is still gathering evidence and may schedule additional hearings). So this is a good time to press the pause button and examine what the committee is accomplishing. The committee is clearly building a criminal case against Trump and his closest enablers of seditious conspiracy , a crime defined as “conspiring to overthrow, put down, or destroy by force the governme...
Jul 21, 2022•9 min
Friends, Today I want to connect some dots. What do congressional Republicans, Joe Manchin, and Hungary’s Viktor Orban have in common? They all oppose the Biden administration’s proposed global minimum corporate tax — designed to stop corporations from playing one country against another in a worldwide race to the tax bottom. The reason for Manchin’s opposition? As he told a West Virginia radio host on Friday, other countries have yet to adopt the tax and he doesn’t want to put American companie...
Jul 19, 2022•5 min
On Friday, after putting a final spear through the heart of what remained of Biden’s and the Democrat’s domestic agenda, West Virginia’s Democratic Senator Joe Manchin also rejected any tax increases on big corporations or the wealthy — until inflation is no longer a problem. This is rich, in every sense of the word. Raising taxes on big American corporations and the wealthy would not fuel inflation. It would slow inflation by reducing demand — and do it in a way that wouldn’t hurt lower-income ...
Jul 18, 2022•5 min
My informal weekly coffee with Heather Lofthouse (Executive Director of Inequality Media Civic Action and my former student), discussing the past week. Today we talk about Joe Manchin’s final destruction of Biden’s domestic agenda, Schumer’s and Biden’s inability to hold him accountable, this week’s terrifying inflation number and its potential effect on the midterms, appreciation for the House January 6 committee, Heather’s inability to tell a joke, and my aging irritability. This is a public e...
Jul 16, 2022•14 min
Friends, A while back, I shared with you my love of Frank Capra’s “ It’s a Wonderful Life ” — the essential American fable about the generosity and goodness of Americans toward one another, as opposed to the greedy oligarchs at the top (such as Mr. Potter) who care only about building their own wealth and power. In light of Putin’s war and the rise of authoritarianism around the world, including the United States, I’ve been thinking about another favorite of mine — Michael Kurtiz’s fabulous 1942...
Jul 15, 2022•3 min
At 79, Joe Biden is the oldest president in American history. Concerns about his age top the list for why Democratic voters want the party to find an alternative for 2024. I don’t think this reflects an “ageist” prejudice against those who have reached such withering heights so much as an understanding that people in their late 70s and 80s wither. I speak with some authority. I’m now a spritely 76 — lightyears younger than our president. I feel fit, I swing dance and salsa, and can do 20 pushups...
Jul 14, 2022•9 min
Uber’s then-chief executive Travis Kalanick texted fellow executives that “violence guarantees success” when clashes with taxi drivers broke out in 2016 in Paris, a key market for the company. Uber leveraged the violence against its drivers to win sympathy from regulators and the public, as it also did in South Africa where Uber drivers were burned when their cars were set on fire. ( This look inside Uber’s internal deliberations came from records Uber lobbyist Mark MacGann turned over to the Gu...
Jul 12, 2022•6 min
