Portside

Reader Comments: Bank Failures, Deregulation and Fed-Raising Interest Rates; Illegal Invasion of Iraq; Slash Pentagon Budget; Jim Crow South; New Day for UAW; Light Communication; Letters From Langston; US Policy and Taiwan; How Workers Win

The most important bank in Silicon Valley has failed, triggering economic uncertainty nationwide. To blame: tough-talking tech dudes, a reckless Congress, contradictory monetary policy, and even Barney Frank.

Reader Comments: Bank Failures, GOP DeRegulation; Pentagon Budget; MAGA in Office Bans Books, Not Guns; Workers and Their Unions; AI, False Promise of ChatGPT; Triangle Shirtwaist Anniversary; Ending the Vietnam War; Rosenberg Case 70 Years Later;

The real culprit here is the diminution of US productive capacity and supply chain disruption caused by four decades of neoliberal policies – disinvestment, deregulation, outsourcing - which have prevented supply-side measures to bring prices down.

My part of the world is full of people who, according to most of my liberal friends, “vote against their own interests”.

New regulations allow the food industry to hide important information from consumers, and it could get worse.

Airline travelers are willing to compromise on personal comfort and convenience in return for lower fares and regularly scheduled flights. But I doubt the flying public would agree to deeply discount their own safety by letting the government hack away at an essential industry standard designed to protect flyers from inexperienced pilots.

Airlines make much more on premium seats than on seats in coach. Their goal: make coach seating unpleasant enough to keep the enormously lucrative premium seats filled. For this scheme to work, the inequality involved has to be clearly visible. Coach passengers need to know that passengers upfront are luxuriating while they, cramped and hungry, sit and stew.