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LT #9 - Top Links - Jan 2023

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LT #9 - Top Links - Jan 2023

Brazilian insurrection, India in trouble, ponzi hospital schemes, Biden border policy, political AI, carbon capture, electric cars, Russian twitter bots, aging populations, intellectual property...

Yoshi Tryba
Feb 4, 2023
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This is the monthly newsletter for LeftTimes - an aggregator of thoughtful articles, videos, and podcasts sourced from 200+ progressive publications covering, news, politics, and culture. For the full experience, download the free mobile app or bookmark the website!

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Top Articles

The Intercept: Those Russian Twitter bots didn’t do $#!% in 2016, says new study

The Intercept: Biden’s border plan drapes Trump’s policies in liberal rhetoric

The Biden administration continues to claim to stand against Title 42… At the same time, however, the administration has deployed and continued to expand Title 42’s use to expedite migrant expulsion.

FAIR: The right turns anti-LGBTQ hate up to 11

Real News Network: From Tesla to Twitter, wherever Elon Musk goes, lawsuits and alleged worker abuses follow

The Nation: The Department of Defense has delivered another massive intelligence failure

Chinese emissions represent at least as great a threat to US security as the multitude of weapons enumerated in the Pentagon’s 2022 report—so why was it not addressed?

Jacobin: The terrorism charges against cop city protesters are ominous

Jacobin: The medieval crusade against the Cathars supplied a template for modern oppression


Brazilian Insurrection

Bad Faith Podcast: Are you like, over the first amendment? Why the Brazilian insurrection is far more serious and dangerous than the American Jan 6th.

Jacobin: Jeremy Corbyn: Brazil’s insurrection plotters are trying to destroy democracy

Foreign Exchanges
The Brazilian Military Is Culpable in the January 8 Riot
The original Portuguese-language version of this piece was published by The Intercept Brasil. It has been translated and lightly edited for publication here. This project was made possible by the support of Foreign Exchanges subscribers. If you are not an…
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5 months ago · 23 likes · 1 comment · FX Contributor

Criminal Justice Reform

A detailed argument why the US spends *too little* on police, judges, and prosecutors AND *too much* on incarceration.

The Discourse Lounge
Guest Article: The Incentive Problem At The Heart Of The American Justice System
Foreword: The following article is a guest post by written John Fawkes, a substack writer with a degree in criminal justice. I’ve accepted this guest article because I don’t want to foster an echo chamber, and its solutions do differ in some of my writings on American policing. After reading this piece, I think this is a important article on the fiscal …
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5 months ago · 26 likes · 3 comments · John Fawkes

India on the brink?

In 2019, ahead of COVID, India was sometimes describes as a developing country suffering from rich-country banking problems. COVID displaced those concerns to the margins. With the crisis at Adani issues of financial stability come very much back to the fore. Adani’s group has been at the very forefront of the good news narrative that has yielded a series of decisive election victories for Prime Minister Modi. As Mihir Sharma points out, the Indian public is under few illusions about the extent of corruption and feather-bedding, what they expect from the likes of Adani and Ambani is delivery. But that depends on preserving at least a veneer of financial probity and stability. If the panic spreads, if there are huge losses to be absorbed, it is an open question which balance sheet will absorb the damage.

Chartbook
Chartbook #190: The Adani crisis - is Modi's house of cards at risk?
The Adani conglomerate, the business group most closely associated with Modi’s India, is under serious attack in the stock market, following a damning report by researchers at Hindenburg the outfit that specializes in short-selling overhyped tech stocks…
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4 months ago · 63 likes · Adam Tooze

Climate change and energy

Grist: A new EPA proposal is reigniting debate about what counts as ‘renewable’

While renewable fuel standards have gained a stamp of approval from industry producers and the federal government, environmental groups see increased investment in ethanol, biomass, and biogas as doubling down on dirty fuel. 

New to LeftTimes, Sustainability by Numbers, on why even though electric vehicles are more carbon-intensive to manufacture - they’re still better for the environment.

Sustainability by numbers
Electric cars are better for the climate than petrol or diesel
For a more in-depth analysis of the climate impact of electric cars, I recommend Zeke Hausfather’s analysis on Carbon Brief. Electric vehicles are marketed as an important technology to reduce CO₂ emissions. But, electric vehicles (EVs) still need electricity to run, and manufacturing batteries can be energy-intensive…
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4 months ago · 26 likes · 10 comments · Hannah Ritchie

Matt Yglesias on why we need to invest in carbon capture:

Slow Boring
America needs more Class VI wells
Last week’s dust-up over banning gas stoves illustrated something we’ve talked about quite a bit here at Slow Boring: public support for action on climate change is broad in one sense, but extremely narrow in another, with most Americans vaguely in favor but very strongly disinclined to be personally inconvenienced in any way for the sake of the issue…
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5 months ago · 136 likes · 256 comments · Matthew Yglesias

The Economy

BIG by Matt Stoller
Ponzi Hospitals and Counterfeit Capitalism
Welcome to BIG, a newsletter on the politics of monopoly power. If you’re already signed up, great! If you’d like to sign up and receive issues over email, you can do so here. One big theme this coming year is the Federal Reserve’s choice to get rid of easy money conditions. Throughout most of 2021 and 2022, easy money meant speculators could borrow virt…
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5 months ago · 175 likes · 21 comments · Matt Stoller

These Ponzi-like schemes are pervasive at this point in the U.S. economy, and they are going to unravel over the next year. And that brings me to health care, and in particular, hospitals. This is not an area where you would expect Ponzi financing. Most Americans think highly of hospitals and doctors, imagining them as the good guys you see in TV shows like Scrubs or Grey’s Anatomy, caring professionals doing the best with what they can. A lot of hospitals are nonprofits, and many hospitals in the U.S. - especially ‘safety net’ hospitals that serve poor or rural communities - are on the brink of insolvency. Since 2010, 140 rural hospitals have closed.

Noahpinion
How much does aging really hurt a country?
There was big news in the demography world this week: China’s population has started shrinking. It was previously projected that deaths in China would outnumber births starting in 2023, but it turns out that it happened a year ahead of schedule…
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5 months ago · 163 likes · 161 comments · Noah Smith

AI, Politics, and Ideology

Why are better AI’s both more liberal and more conservative?

Astral Codex Ten
How Do AIs' Political Opinions Change As They Get Smarter And Better-Trained?
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5 months ago · 173 likes · 238 comments · Scott Alexander

https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-244-are-77445423

Top Videos and Podcasts

Dean Baker talks about how intellectual property distorts the economy/competition and enriches elites - and proposes how to fix it.

And finally, Sarcasmitron breaks down the events that led to the invasion of Ukraine - making a detailed argument why threat of NATO expansion had nothing to do with it.


Thanks for reading! See you next month! - Yoshi

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