Tag: inequality
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Moneyland: The Inside Story of the Crooks and Kleptocrats who Rule the World by Oliver Bullough
Inequality is likely second only to climate change on the list of defining issues of today, and this book approaches the issue from a unique angle. There are dozens of books about rich people behaving badly, and the ideas of tax havens, offshore accounts, holding companies and multiple citizenship all work their way into the…
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He wakes up in his car. Then he lovingly chooses your avocados.
Last winter, as Askew was driving to pick up an UberEats order, a stray bullet passed through the car he was renting at the time, shattering the driver’s side window and going out through the passenger’s side. Askew slept that night in the car — shivering, broken glass everywhere — swapped it out at the…
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Blood in the Machine by Brian Merchant
This is one of the best nonfiction books I’ve read. It’s an impressive feat of research: Merchant writes about the beginning of the Industrial Revolution with incredible detail, balancing very dense storytelling with short, focused chapters to keep it from overwhelming. The story itself is rich and almost impossible to believe: Lord Byron, Frankenstein, Walter…
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Conspicuous Destruction by Kim Phillips-Fein in NYRB
Barnburner of an essay from Kim Phillips-Fein in NYRB on the issues with private equity, and also an interview with her about the essay. I read one of the books she talks about — These are the Plunderers — and liked it much more than I expected to. It wasn’t the anti-capitalist rant I thought…
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Taking the Greyhound in 2023
In The Guardian, Joanna Pocock writes about taking a cross-country trip by Greyhound bus. Our bus showed up, but we were further delayed while passengers on it waited for their luggage. Apparently, its faulty hold had opened and bags had scattered along the highway – or so the story went. You never quite know on…
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Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires by Douglas Rushkoff
It’s too soon for me to really dig into how much of this book I agree with, but the ideas and theories are absolutely worth your time. The pitch is deceptive: the whole “I met with billionaires” thing is just a gateway into a theory of modern scientism and tech thinking. He skewers Dawkins and…