The Atlantic: A Bright Red Flag for Democracy

Another group is speaking out, too: people who believe the deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas was staged, and that students like Gonzalez are actors, not victims. Far-right provocateurs have focused on David Hogg, a 17-year-old student who had the self-possession to interview his classmates while the shootings were taking place. Hogg’s composure in interviews, his criticism of President Donald Trump, and the fact that his father is a retired FBI agent have fueled a conspiracy theory that claims Hogg has been paid—by Hillary Clinton, George Soros, or favorite figures among conspiracy theorists—to promote an anti-gun agenda. Supported by media figures like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly, the conspiracy theories have received a big boost from YouTube, with its algorithms that push videos targeting Hogg to the top of trending video lists.  [...]

In the mid-1960s, 77 percent of Americans reported trust in the U.S. government to do the right thing all or most of the time, according to surveys from Gallup and the National Elections Survey. Asked the same question in a Gallup poll late last year, only 18 percent reported trusting the government. This isn’t a Trump-specific phenomenon. Trust has been falling in the United States for decades, and it hit comparably low points during the Clinton and Obama presidencies. [...]

Despite having good reason not to trust the political process, the students are doing what we’ve been taught to do as citizens: tell our legislators what we think, and if they don’t listen, demand to be heard. So far, that’s not gone especially well. One group of students traveled to Tallahassee to meet with legislators and instead watched 71 Republican legislators block debate on bills to limit high-capacity magazines. A town meeting with legislators, televised by CNN, went little better, as politicians squirmed uncomfortably and failed to answer the blunt questions put forward by students. [...]

Mistrust is expensive. When people worry that the media is being manipulated, it takes work to get to a set of facts we trust, and more work to get to a common set of facts we can discuss or debate. When people worry legislators aren’t listening to citizens, but to corporations and lobby groups, they move beyond letters and phone calls to protests and rallies. Two decades ago, the author Frank Fukayama posited that high-trust societies were wealthier than low-trust ones because fiscal transaction costs were lower. As Americans experience an increasingly paralyzed and dysfunctional federal government, it’s clear that mistrust is raising the costs of representative democracy.

read the article

The Alternatives: German town takes power back from energy giants – podcast

In Britain, rip-off energy prices have become politically toxic, with the major parties vying to offer price caps, heating allowances and a transition to lower-carbon technologies. But truly radical plans – such as taking the supply of energy back into the hands of local communities – have never been given serious consideration. It is a model that has been trialled in the German town of Wolfhagen and is now a source of local pride. Aditya Chakrabortty hears from Iris Degenhardt-Meister, who sits on the board of the local energy cooperative, which not only replaced a major multinational in running the town’s energy supply but is now aiming to make it 100% renewable.

listen to the podcast

Business Insider: Theresa May only has two Brexit options left: Capitulation to the EU or a second referendum

His position — that Britain will eventually win a soft Brexit package from the EU — is a common one among analysts and economists in The City's investment banks. They believe no government could survive the economic damage of a hard Brexit. [...]

"So how will the current deadlock be broken? The chances of the EU conceding ground remain ultra-slim. Its economy is motoring, while cutting the U.K. a good deal would risk fuelling separatist movements elsewhere. It can run down the clock, waiting for the U.K. to capitulate as the cliff-edge draws nearer." [...]

"The PM, meanwhile, will stick to her unworkable proposals for as long as she can. Later this year, however, Mrs. May must decide, and we expect her to opt to keep Britain tied to the EU with a customs union. This would solve the Irish question and minimise the administrative and economic disruption. It is also the only plan that can command a majority in parliament." [...]

It's an extraordinary scenario, and it is essentially speculation on Tombs' part. What makes it significant is that, outside parliament and the Westminster media echo chamber, this is how the smart money sees Brexit playing out.

read the article

The Guardian: Has the time come for a wealth tax in the UK?

The latest politician to push for a change of tone may raise a few eyebrows. It isn’t John McDonnell or Jeremy Corbyn, but David Willetts, the Conservative peer who was a universities minister under David Cameron. Lord Willetts will attempt to make the case for greater wealth taxes in a speech on Monday.

The reasons are clear. The public purse will be out of pocket by roughly £160bn by the mid-2060s as the number of people over 65 grows by almost a third, while the working age population is expected to only increase by about 2%. The government’s own forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility, reckons healthcare spending will need to almost double from 6.9% of GDP in the early 2020s to 12.6% by the mid-2060s because of demographic shift alone. [...]

|The divide between rich and poor is growing and it’s proving increasingly difficult to earn your way to riches. Wealth taxes are being considered as a result, with work also being done by the Institute for Public Policy and Research expected to be published next month. [...]

The trouble would be implementing the changes required. Polling shows wealth taxes are viewed as the most unfair way for the government to raise money, even though the accumulation of wealth is often passive – particularly for property owners. [...]

The French economist Thomas Pikketty has argued that without change, inheritance will eventually matter a lot more when determining a person’s life chances, as it did in ancient societies. Past wealth, he says, will tend to dominate new wealth – and successors will tend to dominate labour earners.

read the article

The Observer view on Theresa May’s Brexit speech

May’s speech, signalling a fundamental parting of the ways, was a defeat for the business people, trade unionists and community leaders who rightly fear for the country’s future prosperity, cohesion and jobs. It was a defeat for young people, British and European, who, more so than older generations, will perforce inhabit an ugly new world of harder borders, work permits, bureaucracy and pervasive state intrusion. [...]

Bad because, in overall terms, the proposed settlement is neither one thing nor the other. Britain will not have its cake and eat it, in Boris Johnson’s preposterous parlance. It will simply have less cake. May rejected the single market largely because of its freedom-of-movement provisions. Even though employers have been telling her for months that Britain relies on EU workers, the prime minister remains foolishly frit of Daily Mail spectres of invading foreign hordes.

Yet even as she rejected it, May recognised the benefits of the single market, sought continued, frictionless, access to it, and lamely admitted that we will all be the poorer for being outside it. What kind of leadership is this? Such self-contradictory thinking would give Descartes a headache. The same applies to her Through the Looking Glass “customs partnership” wheeze that, she said, would “mirror EU requirements”. If she means future customs arrangements will be reversed, back to front and inside out, she may well be right. What a nightmare of red tape is now in prospect from those who promised a liberating bonfire on the cliffs of Dover and will create, instead, a giant lorry-park.

read the article