Attention Economy


Friday, December 13, 2024

Plutocratic Populism

Trump’s Impossible Task: Delivering for the Working Class and Billionaires
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-11-18/trump-s-impossible-task-delivering-for-the-working-class-and-billionaires
He’s attempting to pull off plutocratic populism, but the math doesn’t square.


Trump's Pro-Corporate Populism Cannot Last
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/unitedhealthcare-ceo-populism-expanding-to-target-business-by-eric-posner-2024-12
Chicago Law Professor Eric Posner:
Europeans must be scratching their heads. America’s Big Tech companies may be widely loathed at home, but they are envied on a continent that struggles to create its own innovative wealth creators. The truth, however, is that these companies’ huge market capitalizations owe as much to their monopoly status as to innovation. They have long downplayed the significant social harms they do, and they constantly lobby policymakers to block regulation. It is little wonder that their stranglehold on American culture is now deeply resented by left and right alike.
 

In Display of Fealty, Tech Industry Curries Favor with Trump
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/14/technology/trump-tech-amazon-meta-openai.html
It was a week of frenzied activity, as Silicon Valley billionaires and their companies brandished checks and compliments for the President-elect.

The Week CEOs Bent the Knee to Trump
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/donald-trump-ceos-corporate-influence-second-term-df1455f7
Companies abandoned Donald Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. Now, they are rushing to curry favor with the president-elect as he prepares to return to the White House.