UnitedHealth recently helped kill single-payer health care legislation in California.
Gov. Gavin Newsom backed off his previous support of the idea -- after he & Dems received huge money from UnitedHealth donors. https://buff.ly/3ZPLOPu
The thing you have to understand about the original Gilded Age is that "gilded" does not mean "golden." It means covering something cheap with a thin layer of gold, to make the cheap thing look more valuable.
That is why they called it the Gilded Age: it was a cheap simulation of a golden age. A shiny veneer of prosperity, but scratch the glimmering surface and all you'd find underneath is base metal.
In other words, enshittification is nothing new. It's just how plutocracy works -- looting the fundamentals of the economy to gild the lives of a few.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age#The_name_and_the_era
https://buttondown.com/perfectsentences/archive/perfect-sentences-102/ this week in sentences: the old rug that ties, fish physiology, on the other hand, a deeply inconvenient hour, big soup, just as America, in terms of the sorrow, sexless hydrogen
🚨EVENT!🚨 LaborTech's End-of-Year Showcase!
**Happening Thurs, Dec 12-Fri, Dec 13**
Come for discussions on how to organize, research, & teach around labor + tech issues, with spotlights on South Asia and Latin America!
For more info/to RSVP: https://bit.ly/4fIoBE2
Slept badly but still got up at 6 to take the Amtrak to Delaware this morning, only to get a message from my advisor once I arrived at Penn Station that she's cancelling seminar today on account of a fever. I cancelled the train tickets for a cash refund and went home. Now in that hazy state of too much caffeine for a nap but too tired to be functional
https://buttondown.com/perfectsentences/archive/perfect-sentences-101/ this week in sentences: Sad Beige Home, space glue, unleashed dogs, plenty of chicken nuggets, motel rooms, we were promised, an outmatched cleric, commodity flotsam, sickos, anxiously toggling