Thread by @LongDesertTrain

Jeffrey Zients is a monster. He does not serve the American people; he serves American capital.

"Zients isn't a public health expert. He’s a former corporate executive whose track record bolsters the worst possible impulses for a Biden appointee..." 1/8

https://twitter.com/wsbgnl/status/1491553513838563336

"He cut his teeth at Bain Capital, the private equity firm...which has erased pensions & health benefits for tens of workers over decades of leveraged buyouts."

(Article by @DRBoguslaw) 2/8
prospect.org/coronavirus/fi…

Reminder: Private equity people are the scum of the earth. They exploit opportunities to fleece the public & rent-seek that ordinary corporations—not known for benevolence—find too shameful, like extorting ER patients w/surprise billing. See @lfeatherz 3/8 jacobinmag.com/2020/10/rural-…

PE is also partly responsible for the atrocious state of nursing homes in the US. They buy up nursing homes, cut staffing & other costs to the bone—causing immense suffering & avoidable illness & death—& collect windfall profits for their good deeds. 4/8 vox.com/policy-and-pol…

This is the neoliberal economy. The way to wealth is through rent-seeking, i.e. finding clever ways to lay legal claim to the goods & services produced by others while doing nothing to benefit society or (more often) by actively causing harm. Example from @NathanJRobinson ⬇️ 5/8

More than any other economist I'm aware of, @DeanBaker13 has outlined the manifold ways the rich get richer through rent-seeking—usually with state assistance—most recently in his excellent book, "Rigged," which is freely available digitally. 6/8
deanbaker.net/books/rigged.h…

So it's hardly surprising to see private equity man like Zients downplaying the 60,000 US Covid deaths in January that his failed—and frankly cruel—policies contributed to.

But it's sad to see Fauci debasing himself by praising such a creature. 7/8

https://twitter.com/wsbgnl/status/1488667637752025089

Back to Zients: "Then Zients made a name for himself running a pair of management consultancies, where he advised CEOs to be blunt with their employees: 'The social contract is never coming back, & your employees know it.'"

This is Biden's Covid czar. Awesome. #FireZients 8/8