EP 869 Is Anyone in Charge and Accountable Anymore?
Isn’t it great when you deal with a company where the principal is the owner who will take full responsibility for the actions of the company’s employees? How rare is that? Well, according to our guest, it is getting rarer by the day as systems are built to insulate humans from ever having to claim direct responsibility for any of the indignities you may face in your dealing with companies and politicians. Dan Davies, author of “The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions and How the World Lost Its Mind,” describes how human decision-making has often been replaced by a literal algorithm and it has allowed us to have crime without criminals. No one, for example, went to prison following the financial meltdown in 2009 because we replaced individual responsibility with ‘criminogenic organizations’ designed to ensure that crimes would be committed, and no one would pay the price. Private equity deal-making, which we have reported on previously, offers guilt free destruction of whole industries. Impress your friends when you explain to them what an ‘accountability sink’ is after listening to this podcast.
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Mark Twain evolved over his adult life when it came to matters of race. In perhaps the greatest American novel of all time, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, Twain demonstrates his keen sense that the Civil War did not end prejudice and bigotry in our society, though it did reshape its contours. There is no better example of Twain’s growing appreciation for the contributions that African Americans had and could make in American society than his depiction of Jim in the book. Jim is shrewd, self-aware, and a deeply admirable man. Based on people Twain knew, he was one of the first fully realized Black fathers in American fiction. After you listen to my discussion with the leading interpreter of Twain’s work, Shelley Fisher Fishkin, author of “Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn’s Comrade”, you will, as I did, gain a whole new appreciation for this classic piece of literature and for what Twain was trying to tell us. While much controversy has surrounded this book and Twain’s use of ‘authentic speech’ with his characters, and how we should perceive Jim, the light she sheds upon the subject is remarkable. She further shares some of Twain’s writings which provide us with a glimpse into how he would view this moment in American history. Would it surprise him to see what is happening? Take a listen.
Should gold and silver be a part of your portfolio? And, if so, how and when? With precious metals prices surging is it too late to invest in them or is it just the right moment? There are so many factors at play here that most advisors will tell you it’s all right to make it a part of your holdings, but not too much. And if they agree with having some holdings in this category, they will want use to you it as a hedge against inflation and market volatility. Then, you ask, how do I purchase it? In physical holdings? Or IRA’s or ETF’s? Since gold recently pierced the psychological milestone of $3,000 an ounce, these questions are on a lot of people’s minds. For that reason, we invited Jordan Roy-Byrne, founder of The Daily Gold, and author of “Gold & Silver” The Greatest Bull Market Has Begun” to join us to discuss the many issues surrounding gold and silver.
In 2024, Latinos, a diverse population in America, gave Donald Trump more support than Republicans generally receive for their presidential candidate. He was speaking quite openly of his plans to shut down the border and pursue illegal immigrants, first those involved in gangs and illegal activity, and then others who crossed into the United States without documentation. Having seen this play out in the first 100 days of the second Trump Administration, we decided to go back to an authority on the subject, Sam Quinones, to gain his perspective on how those policies are playing out. Mr. Quinones is a veteran reporter on immigration, gangs, drug trafficking and the border. A former reporter for the L.A. Times, he has written acclaimed books like “Dreamland” and “The Least of Us” focusing on these issues.
Employment attorneys like to get together at conferences and routinely discuss ‘best practices’ so that they can help employers comply with legal requirements, reduce the risk of lawsuits and promote positive work environments. Well now, thanks to Donald Trump, Elon Musk and DOGE they have something new to discuss–‘worst practices.’ According to our guest, Attorney Gary Phelan, a partner at Hurwitz, Sagarin Slossberg & Nuff in Connecticut, co-author of “Disability Discrimination in the Workplace”, their amateurish, capricious and downright illegal approach to layoffs in the federal government meets the new gold standard in that category of employment practices. So many lawsuits have been filed against the Trump Administration since January that the Justice Department has had a hard time keeping up with them. We discuss all that’s gone on with Attorney Phelan and home in on the new mega-lawsuit which represents the best shot at fully undoing all the DOGE efforts to date.
As a window into the refugee crisis which has landed with particular impact on the European shores, journalist and author Jeanne Carstensen focuses her new book on a tragedy dating back to October 28, 2015. At the height of the biggest refugee crisis since WWII, a dangerously overloaded old wooden boat set sail from Turkey. The smugglers had promised the passengers ‘a very safe’ journey to the nearby Greek island of Lesvos, but soon the boat swayed from side to side, broke apart, tossing hundreds of men, women, and children into roiling seas, resulting in the largest loss of life in the crisis in the Aegean that year. Thus begins the compelling story that is the basis of her book, “A Greek Tragedy: One Day, A Deadly Shipwreck, and the Human Cost of the Refugee Crisis.” Our conversation delves into the refugee crisis from all angles and brings the story forward to this day as we continue to see so many people, a significant number from war-torn and climate ravaged parts of the Middle East, struggling to find new homes because of their displacement. Spoiler alert: it is not a particularly welcoming moment for refugees and America is playing a role in that.
While many of us do not believe Donald Trump when he says the quiet part out loud, on the matter of deporting people (mostly undocumented, but not all) out of the United States during his second term, he was serious. However, his zeal to do it has ensnared more than folks who came here without papers or overstayed visas AND committed violent crimes. There are others who’ve simply spoken their minds or been lured under false pretenses to an immigration interview and had to have a judge intercede to keep them here. What’s going on with the use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, the threat of suspending the writ of habeas corpus and lock aways for who knows who in El Salvador’s notorious gulag defy explanation and run counter to law, according to numerous court setbacks for the Administration. And after the Supreme Court ordered that Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s release be ‘facilitated’ from his custody in an El Salvadoran prison, the Administration has still refused to do so. What is happening here? To break it all down for us, and provide history and context, is Julia Preston, a journalist and author with a ten-year stint as the immigration reporter for the New York Times. She was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for reporting on international affairs. She will challenge you, as she did me, on knowing the facts about what’s happening in this moment.
DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency in the Trump Administration, is getting a lot of headlines, but the news coming from it may not benefit long-term reforms that virtually all Americans agree are necessary in order to expedite more effective governing. That will require streamlining and enhancing individual responsibility and accountability by civil servants, instead of strict adherence to outdated rules. DOGE seems hellbent on taking an indiscriminate chainsaw to the government itself instead of pruning and cutting back in strategic ways and bringing more fluidity to the process. Philip K. Howard is the Chair of commongood.org and has been a leader on matters of government and legal reforms in America. He has been authoring books for years describing what needs to be done to enhance the performance of government and holding political leaders to account, rather than having them perform poorly because the system was designed to thwart individual initiative and accountability. He will give you a more cogent illustration of what needs to be done than anything you’ve heard from Donald Trump or Elon Musk.
Nuclear power was once thought to provide unlimited energy at no cost. Then the costs became apparent–building and maintaining costly facilities, environmental degradation, abundant use of water resources, storage of radioactive waste and overall security and safety. After the Three Mile Island accident, it was thought that nuclear energy’s promise had come and gone. But, once again, there is buzz about the promise of nuclear energy. And that’s because the power generated is carbon free in the age of climate disruption. And we have growing needs for electricity, particularly due to the dramatic needs for it to power our EV’s and data centers for AI. So, Microsoft and Google, among others, are looking for creative, and cost-effective ways, to get old nuclear power plants back online, convert coal plants to nuclear, build the smaller reactors and, if necessary, site new large plants. There is a buzz about nuclear and by listening to this podcast you will have a better sense of the promise, and the peril involved. Our guest is Anna Erickson, Ph.D. She is a leader of Advanced Laboratory for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Safety and a Professor of Nuclear and Radiological Engineering at the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech.
Even though America and the first Trump Administration rushed into production the most effective vaccine to fight the COVID pandemic as part of Project Warp Speed, our life saving efforts failed to deliver the desired results. There is no way to look at America’s response to the COVID pandemic without wondering what went wrong. America suffered 3,200 COVID deaths per million and a peak loss of 21.9 million jobs. No major industrialized nation had a worse record. It brought to the surface our many divisions including our partisan politics, distrust of our healthcare system, and our new addiction to disinformation. It’s not as if we didn’t have forewarning that one day something like this would happen. In 2005, then President George W. Bush warned that another major pandemic was inevitable. Like so many other issues, Congress did not heed his concerns. Even the pandemic playbook, left by President Barack Obama was ignored by the first Trump Administration. In his book, “COVID Wars: America’s Struggle over Public Health and Personal Freedom,” technology entrepreneur, Ronald Gruner, did what the federal government has still to this day failed to do. He went back to meticulously detail what happened with sound reasoning and much empirical evidence.