There is no such thing as a "free market"

A "free market" presupposes:

1) Consumer choice

2) Complete and accurate information

3) Rational decision-making

Corporations are against the first two and engage in advertising to subvert the third.

The Cost-of-Thriving Index: Reevaluating the Prosperity of the American Family

As an alternative to inflation adjustment, this paper proposes the development of a “Cost-of-Thriving Index” (COTI) that tracks the cost of a basket of major items that a family of four would likely seek to buy. A comparison over time between the cost of that basket and a median weekly wage indicates whether economic trends are easing or compounding the challenge of making ends meet.

In 1985,[2] the COTI stood at 30—it would require 30 weeks of the median weekly wage to afford a three-bedroom house at the 40th percentile of a local market’s prices, a family health-insurance premium, a semester of public college, and the operation of a vehicle. By 2018, the COTI had increased to 53—a full-time job was insufficient to afford these items, let alone the others that a household needs.

Link here.

Any belief system purporting to know "the truth" . . .

Is wrong and dangerous.  People espousing those belief systems impede the evolutionary potential of mankind.

To End Forever War, End the Dollar’s Global Dominance

"But in its laser focus on military restraint, the present debate about endless war largely overlooks the financial architecture of U.S. empire. As the Iraq case illustrates, the dollar is a linchpin of U.S. military dominance, motivating and enabling its expansion around the world. To curb America’s imperial adventurism—and the president’s personal ability to engage in it unilaterally—it is essential not only to draw down the nation’s enormous global military presence but to reduce the dollar’s centrality to international trade and finance."

Link here.

The Standard Model: Beyond the Atom

Fundamental Particles and Interactions

Original size here.

AT WAR WITH THE TRUTH

U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it, an exclusive Post investigation found.

Several of those interviewed described explicit and sustained efforts by the U.S. government to deliberately mislead the public. They said it was common at military headquarters in Kabul — and at the White House — to distort statistics to make it appear the United States was winning the war when that was not the case.

“Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible,” Bob Crowley, an Army colonel who served as a senior counterinsurgency adviser to U.S. military commanders in 2013 and 2014, told government interviewers. “Surveys, for instance, were totally unreliable but reinforced that everything we were doing was right and we became a self-licking ice cream cone.”

John Sopko, the head of the federal agency that conducted the interviews, acknowledged to The Post that the documents show “the American people have constantly been lied to.”

Link here.