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Exploring economic inequality – Advocating for the bottom 50%

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Review of Branko Milanovic’s Visions of inequality – Michael Roberts

One reaction to Roberts’ comments on Milanovic’s new book: Theoretically, profits tend to drop in competitive markets. However, in the real world, as the largest owners of capital exert power over government policy (inevitable), markets are likely to become less competitive and more dominated by monopolies that can raise prices and extract more rent. One example is the decades of lax anti-trust enforcement in the US – which may be shifting some. Higher monopoly prices and profits hurt low-income people the most – and push down their relative wealth. Other government policies – failure of the Medicare program to negotiate effectively with the medical industrial complex/Big Pharma for example – expand the flow of $$ from consumers and taxpayers to powerful business interests and bloat aggregations of capital. When splitting theoretical hairs, economists need to remember the “political” in “political economics.”


Meanwhile in the marketplace:

The Secretive Industry Devouring the U.S. Economy – Atlantic

“Private equity has made one-fifth of the market effectively invisible to investors, the media, and regulators.”

The invisible hand?

How Warren Buffett Privately Traded in Stocks That Berkshire Hathaway Was Buying and Selling – ProPublica

How a Big Pharma Company Stalled a Potentially Lifesaving Vaccine in Pursuit of Bigger Profits – ProPublica

How the Ultrawealthy Use Private Foundations to Bank Millions in Tax Deductions While Giving the Public Little in Return – ProPublica

Jeff Bezos sparked a debate over taxes this week without mentioning them. The tax implications of his Seattle-to-Miami move show why – Fortune

Highest paid college basketball coaches for 2023-24 season – msn


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