Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:
• We Want Them Infected: These ‘experts’ sold the U.S. on a disastrous COVID plan, and never paid a professional price. A painstakingly documented new book by Jonathan Howard, a neurologist at New York University and a veteran debunker of the pseudoscience contaminating our efforts to fight the pandemic. In 2019 you would have been considered a quack if you suggested that the best way to get rid of a virus is to spread the virus. But that became mainstream and influenced politicians at the highest levels. (Los Angeles Time)
• A beginner’s guide to accounting fraud (and how to get away with it) (Financial Times) see also A beginner’s guide to getting away with accounting fraud, part two (Financial Times)
• Crypto giant Binance commingled customer funds and company revenue, former insiders say: The money flows at Binance indicate a lack of internal controls to ensure customer funds were clearly identifiable and segregated from company revenues, three former U.S. regulators said. The commingling of these funds put client assets at risk by obscuring their whereabouts. Binance customers shouldn’t “need a forensic accountant to find where their money is,” said John Reed Stark, a former chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Internet Enforcement. (Reuters)
• Quackonomics: Medical Properties Trust spent billions buying community hospitals in bewildering deals that made private equity rich and working-class towns reel. (American Prospect)
• Twitter Is a Far-Right Social Network It can no longer be denied. (The Atlantic) see also Elon Musk won’t stop tweeting his way into trouble: Musk’s week of conspiracy theories, explained. (Vox)
• Why is the US banning children’s books? Now the banning and challenging of books in the US has escalated to an unprecedented level. The ALA documented an unparalleled number of reported book challenges in 2022, more than 2,500 unique titles, the highest number of attempted book bans since the ALA began tracking censorship data more than 20 years ago. (BBC)
• Andrew Tate Thought He Was Above the Law. Romania Proved Him Wrong. The online influencer, popular with young men, is facing charges of human trafficking and rape, after seeking out a place where “corruption is accessible to everybody.” (New York Times)
• Inside the Garden of Evil: Harlan Crow wants to stop talking about Clarence Thomas. (The Atlantic)
• The fanatics have taken over. America’s Becoming a Suicide Pact: How Do You Have a Functioning Democracy With…Red States? What does their future hold? I won’t mince words, it’s not going to be pretty, and it’s a warning to the world. A world which is turning to its own Red-State-America-style demagogues and fanatics for a measure of security in a troubled world. It’s — emphatically — not worth it. (Eudaimonia)
• How Sexist Is Hollywood? Check Out Geena Davis’s Spreadsheet: When it comes to quantifying bias in popular entertainment, the Academy Award winner’s in a league of her own. (New York Times)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with John Hope Bryant, the founder and chief executive officer of Operation HOPE. The firm focuses on providing financial illiteracy as a way to address systemic issues for under-served individuals and small businesses. He is also the CEO of Bryant Group Ventures, and The Promise Homes Company. Bryant was named 2016 American Banker ‘Innovator of the Year,’ He has been an advisor to the last three sitting U.S. presidents.
Americans in Mental Facilities v. Prisons
Source: @Codie_Sanchez
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