A Few Reads for Monday

 Will the USSC stick up for what has been dubbed "the most evil family in America"?

I haven't followed the opioid epidemic closely, but it appears this family is well beyond the pale in its wrongdoing.

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And speaking of the billionaires, they  aren't particularly smart or even self-made.   There is a reason Horatio Alger was a fictional character.

Whether it is Musk’s meltdown or Trump’s fascist raving about “vermin” and threats directed at Comcast, owner of MSNBC (“Our so-called ‘government’ should come down hard on them and make them pay for their illegal political activity,” he vowed on Truth Social), when outside the protective shell of sycophants and propagandistic media, these characters often reveal themselves to be petulant, deranged and shockingly out of touch with reality. (Note: I am an MSNBC contributor.)

And yet millions still buy into the myth, attributing superior knowledge and ability solely on the basis of accumulated wealth. “The American preoccupation with the genius savior dovetails with the American distrust of government and other public institutions; the conventional neoliberal wisdom is that institutions would be better, more efficient, if they were all run like businesses,” wrote Whizy Kim for Vox.

The myth dies hard.  There is no such thing as being "self-made," just as there is no such thing as "merit."

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