Google is evil

UPDATE: Email exchanges between Slaughter and Lynn have been released.

Google long ago effectively abandoned its original motto of “Don’t be evil” that was part of its code of conduct. They still paid lip service to it for a while but then quietly abandoned even that pretense in 2015. It has become as dangerous a monopoly as Facebook, Amazon, and the old-style mega-corporations like ExxonMobil. While it likes to portray itself as a mere platform for the free exchange of ideas, in reality it is a marketing behemoth.
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How much taxes individuals and corporations pay

The US business and political class are fond of bemoaning what they say are the high rates of corporate taxes in the US and how it makes the US uncompetitive compared to their European counterparts. Of course, this is just a game played by transnational elites to try and get governments to compete with each other in lowering tax rates. If the US rates do dip below the European ones, then the business elites in Europe will complain how they are now disadvantaged and need to have their taxes lowered, and so on.
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Inherit the wealth

One of the biggest myths that has had a negative effect on American politics is that the US is a society with a lot of economic and social mobility and that simply by dint of hard work and other worthy qualities one can achieve success and become wealthy. It should not be surprising, then, that a full one-third of Americans think that they will be rich some day. More than half in the age group 18-29 think so, with the percentage declining with age as people begin to realize that time is running out on achieving that dream
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The immunity of the rich bankers

Elizabeth Warren continues to doggedly pursue the wealthy banksters who got off scot-free after pretty much destroying the lives of so many people and threatening to wreck the global economy. She has asked the director of the FBI and its inspector general to explain why there was no action taken against the 14 individuals specifically criminally referred to them by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) that was set up to examine the causes of the financial meltdown.
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Correcting the myths about Greece

If you have been listening over the last year or so to the mainstream media discussing Greece, you would have got the impression that Greece is like a spoiled trust fund child used to living a carefree life at others’ expense and now throwing a major tantrum when the ‘adults’ (i.e., the IMF and the European Commission and Germany) say that they are cutting their allowance and can no longer expect the rest of Europe to subsidize their lazy, hedonistic lives.
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The Greece referendum and the future of national sovereignty

So the Greek public followed the lead of their prime minister Alexis Tsipras and his Syriza Party and voted overwhelmingly 61.3%-38.7% to reject the bailout deal demanded by the so-called troika of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission backed by Germany and France. The Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, considered a key architect of the Greek strategy to fight the troika’s terms and had thus enraged them, resigned following the successful outcome of the vote so as to clear the way for fresh talks to begin.
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A ‘free market’ solution to college debt?

In order to address the problem of many students graduating from college with huge debts, Bernie Sanders has proposed that all state universities provide free education as an investment in the nation’s future by enabling the creation of a more educated work force. The idea is that freed from such debt, graduates will be able to choose worthwhile careers rather than ones that pay a lot so that they can retire their debt. Sanders points out that many developed countries provide free higher education to their students. Even some developing countries do so. For example, my own university education in Sri Lanka was completely free.
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The high price paid by others for our cheap clothes

I was at a party some time ago and the hosts brought out some photographs from a previous party and there was some amusement because I was wearing the same sweater on both occasions. This did not bother me because I like that sweater and wear it as often as I can. In fact, my policy concerning clothes is to buy a few that I like and wear them over and over until they get frayed and have holes in them, and then I wear them around the house. In fact, as I write this, my shirt has a hole in the right elbow that is hidden by a sweater.
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Shifts in the financial center of gravity

US imperialistic power is overtly demonstrated by its massive military that can be used to easily overpower most nations, though we have seen that controlling the aftermath is much more problematic. But a major source of US power is exerted more covertly, by controlling the financial centers of the world. Note how it uses that power to annex the assets of countries it has conflicts with and prevents them from having access to international capital or denying them the lines of credit and insurance that are necessary for trade.
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