The Free Market Doesn’t Care if You Live or Die

I’m old enough to remember that, when Democrats were passing the Affordable Care Act through Congress, Republicans argued that they were tampering with the greatest healthcare system in the world. The argument I saw most often in comment threads and on cable news, if I recall correctly, went that a free market healthcare system made […]

We can’t keep slashing state budgets.

When unemployment numbers exceeded expectations last Friday, the Trump administration wasted no time in rolling out the metaphorical mission accomplished banner. President Trump himself declared the addition of two million jobs to be “the greatest comeback in American history.” While it is undeniably good news that two million Americans went back to work in April, […]

On Rush Limbaugh, white privilege, and coronavirus

Early this week, conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh visited popular progressive radio show The Breakfast Club to discuss the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis. “I don’t buy into the notion of white privilege,” Limbaugh said. After a second of stunned silence, Breakfast Club co-host Charlamagne tha God told Limbaugh […]

A Nobel Prize-winning economist says coronavirus shows ‘that markets don’t work’

There’s no feeling quite like the stomach-clenching dread that hits when you hear a Nobel laureate in economics label the coronavirus recession as “a textbook example of showing that markets don’t work.” The concept of markets — defined simply as the system that allows buyers and sellers to interact — is a cornerstone of mainstream […]

How Seattle book workers have adapted to coronavirus shutdowns

Bookish people, the stereotype goes, are introverts who prefer to stay home. So you’d think the recent social distancing measures would be a bibliophile’s dream: An excuse to read alone for weeks on end. That’s not the case for Queen Anne Book Company bookseller Tegan Tigani, who has been working from home since March 25. During a […]

Three Important Tips for Writing Comics, as Written by Someone Who Has No Right to Give Advice on Writing Comics

About a year ago, AHOY Comics published the first issue of my first-ever comic book miniseries, PLANET OF THE NERDS. AHOY Editor-in-Chief “Torrid” Tom Peyer’s decades of experience saved me from a boatload of first-timer mistakes, but I also learned a few lessons over the course of writing NERDS that I’d like to share with you. […]

Inside the Secret War on Voting with Thom Hartmann

In a special episode of the podcast Pitchfork Economics, I interviewed author and popular progressive talk radio host Thom Hartmann about his book The Hidden History of the War on Voting: Who Stole Your Vote and How to Get It Back. I’m not super-confident in my podcasting capabilities, so interviewing a professional radio guy felt […]

Don’t believe Mitch McConnell’s austerity talk

The word “austerity” hasn’t taken hold in popular discussion here in America the way it has in the United Kingdom. So let’s define it before we go any further: in the latest episode of the “Pitchfork Economics” podcast, Mike Konczal, a director at the Roosevelt Institute, says austerity is the movement by government leaders “towards retrenchment, […]

Why the Seattle Review of Books Is Going on Hiatus, and What’s Next for Me

Over at the Seattle Review of Books, co-founder Martin McClellan and I just announced that the site is going on indefinite hiatus. This was by no means an easy decision. I’m carrying a deep sense of sadness piled on top of all this other coronavirus weirdness, and I feel in many ways even more unrooted […]

The coronavirus pandemic shows that the trickle-down theory of economic growth is a fabrication

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Sunday told Fox News’ Chris Wallace that the American economy would “bounce back” from the coronavirus shutdown by this summer. “As businesses begin to open,” Mnuchin promised, the “demand side of the economy” will “rebound.” Mnuchin was reiterating President Donald Trump’s line on the economy — the idea that when social distancing […]