Top TILIS posts of 2014

The following list is not exactly precise, since all-powerful Google's Blogger platform doesn't give me an easy way to count for the year, but more or less, these were my most popular posts of 2014. Gratifyingly, many were not simply re-posts, but were hardcore analysis by moi, Mr. JT.

So here goes, in chronological order:

"On Ukraine's burgeoning revolution"

"A Wal-Mart manager tells why Wal-Mart sucks"

"The REAL 'stupidity tax' benefits Wall Street"

"Ukraine's Maidan activists are not 'fascists'"

"How America's far-left gets Ukraine wrong"

"Trying to read Putin's mind about Ukraine"

"The Duh files: Study reveals U.S. is an oligarchy"

"On 'tax inversion', Apple, and what makes a 'U.S.' company"

"War Nerd: ISIS conquering empty desert; and bless the Kurds"

"Beinart: Cheney openly disparages 'Bush Doctrine'"

"'Sharing-economy' workers moving toward unions"

"Milbank: Boomers are terrible political leaders"

"What makes 'Murica, land that I love" 

"Corporate tax dodges are un-American" 

"VIDEO: Russians interrogate female pilot captured INSIDE UKRAINE (subtitles)" -- I'M STILL SURPRISED HOW POPULAR THIS RE-POST HAS BEEN.

"State lotteries exploit the poor (NPR)" 

"Yale prof.: How privileged kids can 'avoid becoming out-of-touch, entitled little shits'" 

"Watch 'Jaffa: The Orange's Clockwork' (2010)" 

"Culture warriors, HERE'S something REALLY wrong with U.S." 

"Will: In lame defense of tax inversions"

"U.S. economy stinks because of greedy corporations?"

"Today's thoughts on ISIS"

"Guns in Kroger and the myth of the open-carry Old West"

"Vanden Heuvel's vile apologia of Putin"

"M. Shishkin: Thanks to Putin, post-war Europe is now pre-war Europe"

Granted, a large number of my posts this year were about Ukraine and Russia, and that's no accident, since yours truly speaks Russian and Ukrainian and has had some very personal experience there. I thought that my East-meets-West perspective was lacking in the U.S. blogosphere and could perhaps help others to understand what was happening there.

Case in point, back home I even gave a half-hour seminar to the local Tea Party group about the crisis in Ukraine! They were attentive, polite and grateful. And I kept it to the facts, ma'am, no Obama or lib'rul bullcrap.

That said, here are a few posts that I enjoyed and wished had received more attention:

"You have no business challenging scientists"

"Meyerson: Why the EU's far-right is rising"

"Pew: How Americans fall out politically"

"The universe is huge...So where is everybody?"

"Can corporations become President or get married? (Ruductio ad ridiculum)"

"Study: Healthcare prices 'irrational'"

"Many Israelis don't know a single Palestinian" --  SO THEY'RE EVEN MORE CUT-OFF THAN MOST WHITE PEOPLE IN THE U.S. WHO HAVE AT LEAST ONE BLACK FRIEND.

"Report: Reducing U.S. prison population reduces crime"

"Bergen: 'Jihadist threat is quite inconsequential'"

"Younge: Americans want U.S. power without cost or risk"

"Stopping the next Ebola outbreak in Africa" 

"Being an 'indispensable nation' is killing America"

"What we know about IS leads back to Iraq debacle"

"Vanden Heuvel still ignoring Ukrainians' will, defending Putin, and blaming the U.S."

Happy New Year, everybody!

'Sharing-economy' workers moving toward unions

The more things change.... Uber's business model of making taxi drivers into "independent contractors" is -- surprise, surprise! --leading more and more of those drivers to the conclusion that they must unionize and organize to protect their rights and wages [emphasis mine]:

Uber’s disruption of the cab industry has been welcomed by nearly everyone except those who rely on the cab industry for their livelihoods. It’s arguably made on-demand car rides easier, cleaner, safer, more accessible and, in some cases, even cheaper.

Indeed, such disruption is overdue. The high prices of regulated taxi medallions have kept a small number of bosses in control, while drivers pay high gate fees in order to access their cars and wages. Uber is right that the traditional system is not well suited to drivers’ or customers’ needs.

But the new boss is not so different from the old boss. Uber’s revolution is not actually its technology but its market power. It has disrupted the cab industry in ways so many others can only dream of by leveraging the labor of thousands of workers who are exceptionally underprotected. 

[...] Only four years after the service debuted in San Francisco, Uber drivers nationwide are getting organized and demanding better treatment.  And this could have huge implications for the trajectory of the peer-to-peer economy. As work changes, so will the ways workers seek to protect themselves and their livelihood.

Recently, one of my main bearded liberal economists Dean Baker wrote about the new "sharing economy" embodied by Uber and Airbnb that may seem like a good deal for consumers but is actually a net ripoff.

Thankfully, it seems that just as fast as Uber has disrupted the old model, actual workers and common sense are moving to disrupt Uber.

God bless the working man!

To get a fair share, sharing-economy workers must unionize

By Susie Cagle

June 27, 2014 | Al Jazeera

URL: http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/6/uber-sharing-economyunionstaxis.html