But as #HaroldMeyerson writes for #TheAmericanProspect, the *Cemex* ruling has its limits. Even if the NLRB forces and employer to recognize a union, they can't force the employer to bargain in good faith for a union contract. The #NationalLaborRelationsAct prohibits the Board from imposing a contract.

That's created a loophole that corrupt bosses have driven entire *fleets* of trucks through.

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Writing in *#TheAmericanProspect*, #LukeGoldstein unpacks an #astroturf campaign to save the endangered swipe fee from woke competition advocates:

https://prospect.org/power/2023-08-04-wall-street-culture-war-swipe-fee-reform/

Now, this campaign isn't particularly sophisticated. It goes like this: #Target is a big business that runs a lot of transactions through Visa/Mastercard, so it stands to benefit from competition in payment routing.

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They probably shouldn't have. In this interview with *#TheAmericanProspect*'s #PeterHong, the brilliant documentary director #AmyZiering breaks down how #Netflix and the other streamers have rugged documentarians in a classic #enshittification ploy that lured in filmmakers, extracted everything they had, and then discarded the husks:

https://prospect.org/culture/2023-06-21-drowned-in-the-stream/

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These people who were conspicuously silent for years as the FTC's revolving door admitted the a bestiary of swamp-creatures so conflicted it's a wonder they managed to dress themselves in the morning.

Writing in *#TheAmericanProspect*, @ddayen runs the numbers:

> Since the late 1990s, 31 out of 41 top FTC officials worked directly for a company that has business before the agency, with 26 of them related to the technology industry.

https://prospect.org/economy/2023-06-23-attacks-lina-khans-ethics-reveal-projection/

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In support of this proposition, deliverism's critics point to Obamacare, lauding it as a policy that made Americans better off, but still failed to win enough support for the Dems to defeat Trump at the end of Obama's second term.

In their rebuttal in *#TheAmericanProspect*, @ddayen and #MattStoller point out that for most Americans, Obamacare *didn't* produce any improvement to their health care.

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As #RyanCooper writes for *#TheAmericanProspect*, Merck's argument is that the "fair market" value of its drugs can only be discovered if its single largest customer - Medicare - simply pays whatever Merck demands of it:

https://prospect.org/health/2023-06-08-merck-negotiating-drug-prices-unconstitutional/

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But writing for #TheAmericanProspect, #RyanCooper argues that this could still be sound tactics:

https://prospect.org/economy/2023-05-25-democrats-fear-supreme-court/

If Biden does something about the debt default, and the Supremes block it, then the default is *their* fault. What's more, it's a mess they absolutely do *not* want to get into, like deciding which of the US's creditors will and won't get paid when they sue over the default.

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by @ryanlcooper in @theprospect:

"Now, the consequences of giving in to Republican demands would not be that bad in terms of the economics. But they would be worse in terms of America’s democratic institutions. It would establish the principle that conservatives can win big political victories by making terroristic threats to American government and society. Elections mean little when a party controlling just one house of Congress can get what it wants through extortion and threats. They’re certain to ask for more next time."

https://prospect.org/economy/2023-05-25-democrats-fear-supreme-court/

#SupremeCourt #scotus #DebtCeiling #DebtLimit #politics #USPol #TheAmericanProspect

But the Child Tax Credit has been systematically sabotaged, by Intuit lobbyists, who successfully added layer after layer of red tape - needless complexity that makes it nearly impossible to claim the credit without expert help - from the likes of Intuit:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/29/three-times-is-enemy-action/#ctc

It worked. As #RyanCooper writes in *#TheAmericanProspect*: "between 13 and 22 percent of EITC benefits are gulped down by tax prep companies":

https://prospect.org/economy/2023-05-17-irs-takes-welcome-step-20th-century/

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But as #JarodFacundo writes for *#TheAmericanProspect*, quoting Monica Burks from #CenterForResponsibleLending, a loan is a loan even if it's with a computer: "The industry is trying to create a new definition for a loan in order to exempt themselves from existing consumer protection laws… When you offer someone a portion of money on the promise that they will repay it, and often that repayment will be accompanied with fees or charges or interest, that's what a loan is."

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It's no wonder that these workers - and their newly voted-in union, SEIU 32BJ - have a blunter name for these "agreements": they call them "#BondageFees." In an excellent piece for *#TheAmericanProspect* and *#WorkdayMagazine*, #SarahLazare describes how these bondage fees are driving the immiseration of a group of workers who once earned a living wage for work that made life easier for people like my cousin Max:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-04-21-bondage-fees-trap-contracted-workers/

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Writing for *#TheAmericanProspect*, #LukeGoldstein describes how the USDA changed SNAP rules to let people pay with SNAP for groceries ordered online, as a way to deal with the growing problem of #FoodDeserts in poor and rural communities:

https://prospect.org/health/2023-04-19-retail-surveils-food-stamp-users/

It's a good idea - in theory.

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In yesterday's essay, I broke down the new series from *#TheAmericanProspect* on the hidden ideology and power of budget models, these being complex statistical systems for weighing legislative proposals to determine if they are "economically sound." The assumptions baked into these models are intensely political, and, like all dirty political actors, the model-makers claim they are "empirical" while their adversaries are "doing politics":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/03/all-models-are-wrong/#some-are-useful

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This week, *#TheAmericanProspect* is conducting a deep, critical dive into these two models, and into the enterprise of modeling itself. The series kicks off today with a pair superb pieces, one from Nobel economics laureate #JosephStiglitz, the other from *Prospect* editor-in-chief @ddayen and #RakeenMabud, chief economist for the #GroundworkCollaborative.

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The DoJ's Google suit has triggered fresh rounds of garment-rending from corporate shills who once presided over catastrophic mergers while drawing a public salary.

Writing for #TheAmericanProspect, @jeffhauser and Andrea Beaty from the #RevolvingDoorProject do what they do best - reveal the glaring conflicts of interest these monopoly enablers fail to disclose in attacking the DoJ's case:

https://prospect.org/power/2023-02-13-justice-department-antitrust-attack/

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