Netizen: 13: Iran

The Convergence Age: Ten Forces Reshaping Humanity’s Future
Liquid Computing: The Future of Human-Tech Symbiosis
Velocity Money: Crypto, Karma, and the End of Traditional Economics
The Next Decade of Biotech: Convergence, Innovation, and Transformation
Beyond Motion: How Robots Will Redefine The Art Of Movement
ChatGPT For Business: A Workbook
Becoming an AI-First Organization
Quantum Computing: Applications And Implications
Challenges In AI Safety
AI-Era Social Network: Reimagined for Truth, Trust & Transformation AI And Robotics Break Capitalism
Musk’s Management
Corporate Culture/ Operating System: Greatness
CEO Functions

Trump’s ass-backward “affordability” agenda Here’s a REAL affordability agenda ............ The latest gauge on inflation, released this morning, showed prices increasing 2.7 percent in December compared with the same period a year ago. Food prices were up 3.1 percent. (Reminder: Trump was elected on two issues: bringing prices down, especially food, and avoiding foreign entanglements.) .......... Today, Trump traveled to Detroit to deliver an address to the Detroit Economic Club. It was about “affordability” and he filled it with lies — such as Americans aren’t paying for his tariffs (of course they are) and inflation was “way, way, down” (it’s about the same as it was when he took office). ........ Unfortunately for Trump, “affordability” has become even more politically potent than immigration or crime. And in his first year at the helm, he’s made America less affordable. ............

What should be done to make America more affordable? Ten commonsense initiatives: 1. Get rid of Trump’s tariffs

........ tariffs are import taxes that are paid by the companies that do the importing and by their consumers. ......... Over 90 percent of the value of shares held by Americans is held by the richest 10 percent; over half by the richest 1 percent. ......... A real affordability agenda would bust up big corporations that dominate their industries and prohibit price gouging. ........ A real affordability agenda would make Medicare available to all Americans. This will bring down health care costs for everyone, because Medicare is cheaper and more efficient than for-profit health insurance. .......... Last Wednesday, Trump called for a ban on institutional investors buying single-family housing. ........ The costs of child care take a third of the incomes of parents with young children, on average. The costs of elder care can be even higher for working people with elderly parents. Both are essential for working families. ........... Trump has deregulated big banks and allowed them to charge up to 30 percent interest on credit cards. (The banks love it because credit cards provide them with four times the return of any other line of business.) Trump has gotten rid of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which stopped other sleazy financial practices. And he’s allowed more consolidation of big financial institutions, which means even less competition, higher prices, and shadier deals. (His Justice Department recently approved the merger of Capital One and Discover, which will pile even more debt on low-income consumers.) ............
The captains of Wall Street have never had it so good. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon made $770 million last year. But average working people are being shafted.
.............. A real affordability agenda would cap credit card interest rates at 5 percent, stop the banks from charging late fees on unsuspecting consumers (Trump’s OMB director, Russ Vought, withdrew the late fee rule in April), and bust up the biggest banks whose market power is allowing them to charge absurdly high interest rates on all borrowing.