The Citizens’ Utility Board, or CUB, is a model approach for bringing together large numbers of diffuse consumers into a voluntary organization, which can then pursue a common citizen/consumer agenda in banking, insurance, housing or dozens of other arenas. I call it the “silicon chip” for the citizen movement because it is a low-cost, high … Read more
The hype and unsubstantiated hope behind the self-driving car movement continues unabated, distracting from addressing necessities of old “mobilities” such as inadequate public transit and upgrading highway and rail infrastructure. At a conference on Driverless Cars sponsored by the George Washington University Law School earlier this month, the legal landscape of unresolved problems and unasked … Read more
The turmoil inside the Trump White House is much more intense than the media is reporting. Palaces of intrigue, under-perceived siege by political and law enforcement adversaries, tend to boil inward before they burst outward. One of the most perilous decisions for Trump is how far he will go in firing prosecutors looking into his … Read more
After eight grueling years in the White House, ex-president Barack Obama looked forward with his wife Michelle to a deserved, extended rest and vacation. Nearly five months later, he’s enjoying the company of the rich and famous at their secluded mega-retreats so much that a generally sympathetic media has begun to describe a playboy’s leisure. … Read more
For his smallish stature, Amazon Boss Jeff Bezos has a booming, uproarious laugh. Unleashed during workdays, its sonic burst startles people, given it comes from as harsh and driven a taskmaster as exists on the stage of corporate giantism. Is Bezos’ outward giddiness a worrisome reflection of what Bezos is feeling on the inside? Is … Read more
More and more conservatives and liberals, from the halls of Congress to people in communities across the country, are agreeing that the so-called “war on drugs” needs serious rethinking. First, we should define our terms. The “war on drugs” that was started by Richard Nixon in 1971 and persists to this day, refers to illegal … Read more
All over America, school children are completing another academic year before their summer vacation. This invites the questions: what did they learn and what did they do with what they learned? I’m not talking about their test scores, nor the latest fads in rebranding education, like the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) curriculum that … Read more
The U.S. is still bogged down in Afghanistan (the 16-year-old occupation is the longest in American history) and in Iraq (since the unconstitutional, illegal invasion of the country 14 years ago). With about 30,000 poorly equipped fighters, the Taliban has held down a U.S. equipped and trained Afghan army eight times larger in soldiers, plus … Read more
The large marches ― in Washington, DC and around the country ― calling attention to the importance of science and focusing on the calamitous impacts of climate change had impressive turnouts. But the protests would have been more productive if they concentrated more, in their slogans and signs, on 535 politicians to whom we have … Read more
Democratic Party loyalists are always complaining about the big-money fat cats behind the Republican Party’s candidates and platform. Over the last few election cycles, the Democratic Party has lost most state legislatures, governorships, the US Senate, the US House of Representatives and the White House. Republican control of the Senate is also leading to control … Read more
As a society obsessed by money, we pay a gigantic price for not educating high school and college students about money and banking. The ways of the giant global banks – both commercial and investment operations – are as mysterious as they are damaging to the people. Big banks use the Federal Reserve to maximize … Read more