Allison

Helper, lover of randomness and the arts, traveller, weird hobbiest

[David Dayen @ddayen]

Agri Stats, which aggregated proprietary information from meat processors & facilitated rising prices, was sued by Biden's DOJ in 2023 but settled the case with Trump's DOJ yesterday. The settlement sentences them to make money.
https://t.co/ZHHY4DdILb

[Ryan Cohen @ryancohen]

The Hollow Men

American capitalism is rotting from the head down. We have replaced the "Owner-Operator"—the risk-taker-with a new, parasitic class of corporate bureaucrat: The Risk-Free Insider.

By "Insider," I am not referring to a specific title. I am referring to the entire administrative state that has captured the modern corporation. This includes the Directors who exist solely to collect fees, the Executives who exist solely to collect bonuses, and the Managers who exist solely to hire consultants.

These are the hollow men of the boardroom. They are masters of PowerPoint. They wear the right suits. They say the right buzzwords about "governance" and "ESG." But they are mercenaries fighting a war with someone else’s ammunition.

In a functioning economy, authority is tied to liability. If you make a bad decision, you lose your own money. That fear of loss is the only thing that keeps a business honest. It forces you to cut waste, obsess over the customer, and stay late to fix what is broken.

Today, we have severed that link.

We have rigged the game so that heads, the Insider wins; tails, the shareholder loses.

If the stock goes up, the Insider collects a massive performance bonus. If the stock crashes due to their own incompetence, they are fired with a "Golden Parachute" worth tens of millions. They are gambling with the house’s money, and they never leave the table poorer than they arrived.

This looting starts in the boardroom.

We have normalized a "Country Club" culture where directors are selected based on social profiling rather than their ability to build a business. The modern board member is often a professional tourist—paid an average of $350,000 a year.

Let’s be brutally honest about what that number represents. The average director is paid nearly five times the GDP per capita of the United States. They earn more for attending four quarterly lunches than the vast majority of Americans earn in five years of hard labor.

And for what?

Most of these directors are "over-boarded," sitting on three or four boards simultaneously. They treat directorships as a gig economy for the elite. They fly in, rubber-stamp a compensation package they didn't read, and fly out. They collect checks from companies they do not understand, do not use, and certainly do not love.

They are not there to ask hard questions. They are there to be collegial. They are there to protect the other Insiders.

And what happens when these boards hire executives who also have no personal capital at risk?

We get the Delegation Economy.

When a Risk-Free Insider faces a crisis—bloated expenses, a broken supply chain, or a stale product—they do not roll up their sleeves. They hire a consultant. They pay a strategy firm millions of shareholder dollars to produce a 100-page deck telling them what they already know.

This is not management. It is intellectual money laundering.

They use shareholder capital to buy an insurance policy for their own careers. If the plan fails, they can blame the consultants. They delegate the work because they are terrified of the responsibility. They would rather preside over a slow, comfortable decline than risk a bold mistake.

While American Insiders are busy optimizing their severance packages, our global competitors are optimizing their products. They are not slowed down by bureaucracy. They are not waiting for a slide deck. They are outworking us.

If we continue to fill our C-suites with administrators instead of operators, we will lose our edge. We will see iconic American franchises hollowed out by fees, managed for the benefit of the Insiders, while the true owners—the shareholders—are left holding the bag.

The time for polite governance is over.

If we want to save the American economy from mediocrity, we must demand a return to the "Owner’s Mentality." We need leaders who treat shareholder capital with the same reverence they treat their own savings. The era of the Risk-Free Insider must end.

[Lukas Ekwueme @ekwufinance]

The US farming sector is in deep trouble

The biggest farming input costs are surging

- Diesel up ~50%
- Fertilizer up ~50%

This is leading to 70% of farmers not being able to buy all the fertilizer they need and farming bankruptcies were up 50% in 2025. To make matters worse, Trump decided to start a trade war with their biggest customer, China

Let’s look at the single biggest agri export, soybeans

- 2018 trade war: China’s purchases dropped 70%
- 2025 trade war: Purchases dropped 70%

Now China’s pledges for the coming years are at risk

[Allison @allirae2]

@CodifyBaseball O9

[WTF @mrwtffacts]

In 2016, Dasha Fincher was a passenger in a car pulled over in Georgia. Deputies found a bag of blue substance on the floorboard and ran a field drug test on it. It came back positive for methamphetamine.

Dasha swore it was just cotton candy.

Unable to pay the $1 million bond… she spent three months in jail, missed the birth of her grandchildren, and was denied medical care.

Months later, the state crime lab finally tested it properly and confirmed: it was in fact blue cotton candy.

She sued the county for wrongful arrest but the lawsuit was dismissed on immunity grounds. She received ZERO compensation.

[Correcting the Record with Guillotines ☭ @SetPixels]

@factpostnews @VazquezSonne4 Said within a day of each other. We live in the stupidest of times.

[Shameless Frontier Mayor and Booster @jamesdecker2006]

This is an incredibly important discussion, @SecRollins. I fully believe you care about the future of rural America and that you want to see a "golden age" of agriculture.

But what are we doing here? We're making policy decisions that will speed the end of American food sovereignty (what little remains of it), we're not ushering in a "golden age."

If there's a strategy, we in the hinterlands would like to know what it is.

[Kim Iversen 🇺🇸 @KimIversenShow]

Remember when they told us Americans that we had to have extremely expensive bankrupting medical care because we do all the innovation?

[Allison @allirae2]

The faith of a daughter in her #daddy: My sister (who lives in a group home) is at a #SuperBowl party. She's rooting for the #Patriots. Her message: "Dad, do something. Call the coach. Tell him what to do." He is a professor of religion who has never played football. Haha!

[Allison @allirae2]

@Marriott has SUCH good phone reservation people! We accidentally called a reservation service when booking a hotel Boston. That person was clearly reading a script, not knowledgeable or personable. We found the direct number. I was surprised at how stark the difference was.

[Allison @allirae2]

@rachelbovard Reporting re SAVE Act implies you'd need passport or birth certificate to vote. I have both. I'm in favor of voter ID. However,many Americans don't have passports, & many women's birth certificates don't match their legal surnames. Is the reporting correct?

[Basel Musharbash @musharbash_b]

“There is looming up a new and dark power. The accumulation of individual wealth seems to be greater than it ever has been since the downfall of the Roman Empire. The enterprises of the country are coldly marching, not for economic conquests only, but for political power. The question will [soon] arise: Which shall rule, wealth or man? Which shall lead, money or intellect? Who shall fill the public stations, educated and patriotic free men, or the futile serfs of corporate capital?”

— Edward G. Ryan, Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Commencement Speech at the University of Wisconsin Law School (1873)

[Mark Cuban @mcuban]

To build on this bipartisan issue. The big insurance companies realize their PBMs are facing hard core legislative changes. Which are great. However.

The ins companies aren’t dumb. They are greedy. They are already moving charges and fees across their subsidiaries.

It starts with the insurance plan that unfortunately, your CEO (if you get it from work) made the mistake of approving , or from your MA plan

They push you into the medical care, pharmacy and specialty pharmacy , clinics, and practices they own or contract with.

Those outlets will charge you more than enough to compensate for the lack of rebates they would hold back from their GPOs

Plus they will charge you and or your companies fees that you have no idea they are charging you or why. Then they will make your company pay fast and get their rebates slow, or use Pre Auths to delay, both so they can earn interest on the premiums for as long as possible

They are too Big to Care. Make them divest.

Next class is on how Pharmacy Wholesalers are complicit in high drug prices. Hint: they are multi hundred billion dollar companies , and they buy from manufacturers at retail price. No other industry in the history of industries that I know of , so this. And it helps PBMs/ins companies benefit from higher prices.

Break them up !

[Allison @allirae2]

#Oklahoma needs this. @GovStitt

[Bring Our Troops Home @TroopsHomeUS]

🚨🚨 BREAKING NEWS 🚨🚨

@DefendTheGuard has just passed the New Hampshire House of Representatives in a 182-159 vote!

H.B. 104 would prohibit the deployment of the New Hampshire National Guard into overseas combat unless Congress first votes to declare war.

This is the second time our bill has passed the third largest legislative body in the English-speaking world, and we expect many more victories in dozens of states in 2026!

[Allison @allirae2]

@TheSouthGAJohn @JonathanTurley True, this could not only be unconstitutional but also discriminatory against female dogs who squat. :)

[Allison @allirae2]

My nephew was excited for his first pro baseball game. Super psyched to see #Ohtani. First at bat, he gets a homerun. Thanks #Ohtani for a cool first experience! #Royals #Dodgers

[Allison @allirae2]

My dad's idea: "Can we give the #SuperBowlLIX #MVP to the whole #Eagles #Defense?

[Allison @allirae2]

#TheOhioState player tackles a #NotreDame receiver. The whistle blows, ending the game. He immediately put his hand out to help his opponent back up. Didn't run away celebrating. Took the time to demonstrate #sportsmanship. Well done.

[David Dayen @ddayen]

If there is one sentence for Biden to commute right now, it's that of Charles Littlejohn, the IRS official who tried to inform the public how the mega-rich control this country. Abigail Disney, herself a scion to a large fortune, explains why this was a public service.

[Allison @allirae2]

Having a real problem w/rules in #CollegeFootball re: #Concussions. Head-to-head isn't a penalty if not the crown?! Did you see the kid wobble? Why's the kid on the field again!? We're more protective of adult #NFL  players than we are of these young men! #OkState #Utah #Big12