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Congressional Dems have tabled their version of the third bailout, and as feared, it contains a bailout for lobbyists.

Congress wants to give money to people whose job is literally to bribe Congress.

pluralistic.net/2020/05/06/mol…

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But as @davidsirota points out, corporate Dems found a way to discredit the bailout even more: in addition to earmarking money for corporate lobbyists working at 501(c)6 orgs, they're also gonna give millions to 501(c)4 "dark money" orgs.

sirota.substack.com/p/war-is-peace…

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These are the preferred vehicle for anonymously funneling unlimited money from plutes and mega-corporations into influence campaigns that are allowed to lie to the American people to influence the outcomes of elections and regulatory proceedings.

They're getting a bailout.

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Some of the eligible orgs: America’s Health Insurance Plans, Partnership for America’s Health Care Future (dark money anti-#MedicareForAll), PhRMA, Institute for Legal Reform (lobbies for no liability for employers whose workers die of coronavirus due to inadequate PPE)...

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...Stand Together (the Koch network) and the American Chemistry Council (fossil fuel, big chem lobbyists).

What's more, many of the companies that fund these orgs are already getting a a bailout, so they get to double-dip their snouts in the public trough.

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* Private equity lobbied to allow it to snaffle up the lion's share of small business PPP relief; its lobbying front, the American Investment Council, can get PPP relief as well under this proposal.

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* Banks are getting billions to administer PPP. This proposal makes the American Bankers Association eligible for PPP as well.

* Airlines got a $50B bailout. Airlines For America can get a PPP bailout.

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For-profit colleges lobbied to get to keep tuition money from students who drop out due to financial hardship. Their lobbying group, Career Education Colleges and Universities, can get a PPP bailout.

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Boeing's getting billions in bailout money. Its lobbyist, The General Aviation Manufacturers Association, can get PPP.

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Sirota: "Allowing corporate lobbying organizations and dark money groups to grab this money is akin to feudal lords gorging themselves at a lavish banquet, and then raiding the last basket of bread that starving peasants are relying on to survive outside the palace walls."

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Image:
Mike Goad (modified)
flickr.com/photos/exit78/…

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creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa…

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Covered Dish People
@doctorow
#ModernMonetaryTheory is an economic lens for understanding how money works. It starts from the commonsense assertion that national governments are money-issuers, and the rest of us are money users, and that money works differently when you are in charge of creating it.

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But this challenges accepted wisdom, like the idea that national deficits cause inflation and saddle our descendants with debt. If governments are the source of money, then they don't tax us in order to spend. They spend (which puts money into the economy) and then tax back.

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If the government runs a "balanced budget" that means it's taxing as much money of out existence as it is spending into existence, leaving behind no money for the rest of us to save or spend. Balanced budgets starve the private sector of the money it needs to operate.

3/
Read 15 tweets
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@doctorow
There are good reasons to worry about Facebook's "fact checking" efforts, primarily that the company is a raging garbage fire that destroys everything it touches and only has two approaches to solving any problem:

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1. Make it fully automated in a way that guarantees that there will be innumerable false positives in which legitimate material is erroneously censored, with no effective means of appeal, even as dedicated trolls exploit the system's blind spot to carry on as normal;

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2. Hire boiler-rooms full of low-waged workers to review horrific materials and make judgment calls that require context they don't have and can't get, until they're so traumatized they literally develop PTSD and sue the company for psychiatric care.

theverge.com/2020/5/12/2125…

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@doctorow
The "gig economy" companies are classic rentiers: in the guise of operating a "two-sided market" (restaurants on one side, delivery people on the other, say), they're actually just siphoning off everyone else's margin, slowly draining them dry.

pluralistic.net/2020/04/18/pol…

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But there's one thing the gig economy can't drain, and that's drivers' bladders.

Restaurateurs, legitimately angry at the third-party delivery apps that are destroying them through dirty tricks and rent-seeking, are denying drivers bathroom access.

vice.com/en_us/article/…

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It's a classic bit of misdirection, a game of "let's you and he fight." The delivery companies maintain the pretense that they're not employers and thus not required to provide bathrooms for their employees.

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