Another "Charter City" Scam
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/28/magazine/prospera-honduras-crypto.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20240901&instance_id=133160&nl=from-the-times®i_id=60517791&segment_id=176610&te=1&user_id=94712a717c8cb6863dac13ecd1a8fd22 Fun story of one of those Randian "charter cities" that I wrote about in my review for Jacobin of the Quinn Slobodian book. https://jacobin.com/2023/03/slobodian-crack-up-capitalism-book-review
Oy! I read this piece in the Times and its “evenhanded” coverage, not, to be sure not mentioning critics of this shit, but not taking sides, either.
Then I read the OpEd section or whatever they call it now. Where’s Paul Krugman? Where’s Michelle Goldberg. To be sure there is Nicholas Kristof “warning” Dems not to “demean” Trump voters. Hey, Nick, anyone actually doing real campaign work for the Dems knows that!
The icing on the cake was their Labor Day piece by Oren Cass, chief economist for American Compass, a “conservative economic think tank” and the brains behind JD Vance’s anti-union but “pro-worker” politics. “Workers Deserve So Much More than America’s Unions”. In glowing terms, he describes Vance and Cotton’s “Higher wages for American Workers Act which will raise the Federal minimum wage, GRADUALLY of course to - wait for it - $11 an hour! So Much More!
But the liberal spirit is not dead at the Times, oh no! The Editorial Board’s piece calls for the end to the death penalty! Wowie Zowie Howie!
This is the sum of NY Times liberalism in 2024. Be way out on your skis liberal for stuff that isn’t going anywhere but have nothing good to say about actual Democratic Party campaign issues like Labor.
I'm always ambivalent about libertarian scams like crypto or zones. On the one hand, they're scams. On the other hand, the scam-ees are little libertarian greedhead boys who mostly deserve their fate. This is especially true for crypto, where there are no local workers to be exploited, and scammers occasionally become involuntary guests of Uncle Sam's own very special zone.