Fearless commentary on finance, economics, politics and power

~ Today’s Water Cooler ~

How the World Bank’s IFC and others development banks supported KFC’s world conquest by backing its factory farms.

A discussion of four books about Palestine to facilitate better understanding of the war in Gaza.

A fresh look, admittedly based on limited information, at how Israel’s economy is holding up in what is proving to be a protracted conflict

The FTC’s Lina Khan is loaded for bear and targeting potential (as in probable) tech-facilitated price collusion in health care.

~ Today’s Water Cooler: Open thread ~

Mild campus protests, at least by 1960s standards, against the Gaza genocide, have produced panic in the officialdom and aggressive responses.

Ecuador was one of the first countries to reject international investment arbitration, back in 2008. Its new ultra neo-liberal government just tried to reverse that. Voters refused to let it.

Industrial policy, despite recent lip service, is out of favor because doing ambitious things isn’t lucrative enough for the right people.

The Freedom Flotialla is another example of how trying to save lives in Gaza is a high risk enterprise.

~ Today’s Water Cooler: Politics, pandemics, Bragg’s theory of the case revealed, the Jewish vote in PA, Carl Schmitt (Nazi legal theorist), and Word of the Day: Anosognosia ~

The gauno must flow!