Search Results for: BID

Hoarding of wealth: The necessity of America transitioning from a “Me Society” to a “We Society”

There are basically two models for social organization, regardless of all the names. They are “me societies” and “we societies.” Russia, for example, is today a classic example of a “me society.” The nation is run by a small cabal of “me-me-me” oligarchs, who own or control basically every major company and, in most cases, entire industrial, commercial, media, and retail sectors. Each is owned by one or more morbidly rich individuals and their families, who are looking out for their own “me” interests (profits) with little regard for the public good. The country’s leader glorifies the individual above...

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Technofeudalism: The economic revolution that Yanis Varoufakis believes has brought an end to Capitalism

By Christopher Pollard, Tutor in Sociology and Philosophy, Deakin University Yanis Varoufakis grew up during the Greek dictatorship of 1967-1974. He later became an economics professor and was briefly Greek finance minister in 2015. His late father, a chemical engineer in a steel plant, instilled in his son a critical appreciation of how technology drives social change. He also instilled him with a belief that capitalism and genuine freedom were antithetical – a leftist politics that made his father a political prisoner for several years during the “junta”, as they called it. In 1993, when he first got the...

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Why families of Native American victims are kept in the dark long after tragic mysteries are solved

It was the winter of 2021 when Philbert Shorty’s family found his abandoned car stuck in the mud outside the small community of Tsaile near the Arizona-New Mexico state line. “We knew something happened from the get-go,” said his uncle, Ben Shorty. “We couldn’t find any answers.” Family members reported the 44-year-old man missing. And for the next two years, they searched — hiking through remote canyons on the Navajo Nation, placing advertisements on the radio and posting across social media in hopes of unearthing any clues. The efforts produced nothing. They had no way of knowing he had...

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Renewable Energy: Why approval for green projects often face clashes between state and local interests

Clean energy developers had planned a 75-turbine wind farm in mid-Michigan’s Montcalm County before local voters shot down the idea in 2022 and recalled seven local officials who had supported it. About 150 miles southeast, Clara Ostrander in Monroe County found herself at the center of a similar conflict as rising medical costs forced her and her husband to consider selling land her family has owned for 150 years. Leasing a parcel to an incoming solar farm could save the property, but neighboring residents complained so vehemently that Ostrander said the township changed its zoning to block the project....

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An Unequal Society: Why the richest democracy in the developed world abandons its poor

Every now and then we all get those moments of shocking clarity and insight that give us a new perspective on reality. Mine came over the weekend when I was watching the political shows on cable TV. This one had to do with the stunned realization of how we’ve normalized the damage that corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court have done to our country by legalizing political bribery. An ad came on for a company that buys life insurance policies. The senior citizen in the ad says something to the effect of, “We learned that we could sell our...

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Lack of coverage by Medicare puts new weight loss drugs out of reach for millions of older Americans

New obesity drugs are showing promising results in helping some people shed pounds but the injections will remain out of reach for millions of older Americans because Medicare is forbidden to cover such medications. Drugmakers and a wide-ranging and growing bipartisan coalition of lawmakers are gearing up to push for that to change in 2024. As obesity rates rise among older adults, some lawmakers say the United States cannot afford to keep a decades-old law that prohibits Medicare from paying for new weight loss drugs, including Wegovy and Zepbound. But research shows the initial price tag of covering those...

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