HIPAA protects people people from having their dental hygienist tell someone that they had their teeth cleaned.

But a corporation can own and sell all your personal data, your internet history, your sexual exploits, and…your DNA.

The government cannot protect us against corporations if corporations constantly empower themselves to eviscerate regulation.

😃There was a time that I admired Buffett in the same way that people always admire the wealthy…with a flawed belief that they got where they are because they held some special skill or moral right to collect wealth.

I understand now that all but a few great fortunes are stolen…extracted from humanity in the forms of economic rents and services using monopolies and legal structuring to shut the door behind them and prevent competition.

Buffett’s virtue isn’t magnanimous investing… it’s his ability to extract profits at the expense of labor. His cash cow isn’t candy or furniture; it’s a set of laws that coerce people to buy his insurance and financial services.

When I’m old, sit me in front of the TV and turn on Andy Griffith.

What a great shirt! Did you make that or can you share a link?

If you own a business and decide to implement lightning, you just clawed back 3% of the fees from Visa. You prevented clients from changing their minds and cancelling their payments. You prevented your bank from putting a hold on funds or declining to transfer them for any of a thousand reasons. You prevented government agencies from having a hate on your business or your client, and using the transaction against you.

Billionaires extracting rents from the masses. They cannot impress me by giving pennies to charities or by saying things that sound magnanimous at the end of life.

Aren’t you a urologist?

I think your fat fingers are a bigger issue for prostate exams…

Speaking of this… Sheldon Wolin’s “Democracy Incorporated” should rocket to the top of everyone’s reading list. What a thorough description of the systems undermining American democracy right now. It’s excellent. Excellent.

Any time the banking cartel positions itself against Bitcoin, I grow more bullish about the orange storm.

That’s certainly the case for poor people. I have a poor friend who pulls in 30k/year. She was audited last year. Why? To maintain a cloud of fear and control to reign in the masses.

Tax unearned income. Relieve the people from regressive taxes on their labor.

Both parties serve those very interests. Politicians don’t push back on their electorate, and the electorate are the corporations that fund their campaigns.

Math mug 👍

This should not surprise anyone.

Read “Permanent Record”

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Google and Facebook have massive data centers that draw tremendous energy for the purpose of privatizing and leveraging your personal information for profit.

Bitcoin miners have massive data centers that draw tremendous energy for the purpose of liberating populations from oppressive governments, economies, and banks.

The former get the bailouts, government contracts, and tax rebates using public funds. Corporations rule the world.

I figure if somebody mutes me, it’s either because I’m an asshole or because I have said something that challenges their world view.

I’m not an asshole

I think it’s better to know nothing than to know the wrong things.

There is no sin in blind ignorance. There is great sin in willful complicity with unreason

Can we extend this generalization to most political candidates?

Don’t just read. Read the right books.

Princeton University Press is about to get a big order from me for this book. This is my next hand-out book if any of you run into me.

“Why negate a constitution, as the Nazis did, if it is possible simultaneously to exploit porosity and legitimate power by means of judicial interpretations that declare huge campaign contributions to be protected speech under the First Amendment, or that treat heavily financed and organized lobbying by large corporations as a simple application of the people’s right to petition their government?”

Sheldon Wolin