The Unz Review • An Alternative Media Selection$
A Collection of Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media
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GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson proposes Medicaid cuts for young men while protecting benefits for single mothers
source: @bronzeagemantis on X Trump and congressional Republicans plan to cut $880 billion from Medicaid, which could eliminate coverage for 15.9 million people. These proposed Medicaid cuts are to pay for the tax cuts that will mostly benefit the wealthy and corporations. Medicaid is healthcare for low-income and disabled people, which differs from Medicare for... Read More
So nice to have you back on this podcast, Dr. Stein and Michael Hudson. Really great to be here. It's an honor to be with both of you. And let's get started with the debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, Dr. Stein. I want to know what is your reaction to that. Just briefly,... Read More
A tepid defense of the Welfare Pill
source: @ScottMGreer on X Scott Greer has a recent YouTube podcast Don’t Take the Welfare Pill, denouncing the embrace of welfarism on the dissident right. Greer is a reactionary and an elitist who promotes White identity based on preppy WASPs and fraternities. While a degree of elitism is needed, the reality is that country club... Read More
The Democratic Party had one last chance to implement the kind of New Deal Reforms that could save us from another Trump presidency and Christian fascism. It failed. Joe Biden and the Democratic Party made a Trump presidency possible once and look set to make it possible again. If Trump returns to power, it will... Read More
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If we were to pinpoint the key to America’s success through the two World Wars and the standoff with the Soviet Union, it would be its vibrant economy and impressive manufacturing capabilities. This self-evident economic prowess has been reduced to that of an enigma. A substantial portion of the American empire’s value today is imaginary.... Read More
The Politics of Natalism and Wealth
The Great Class Swap (Introduction) Matt Yglesias endorses the Great Class Swap Radically Unconventional Solutions to Inequality (including Universal Orphanhood) What would the Great Class Swap look like if implemented The Great Class Swap is more of a thought experiment, philosophical outlook, and metric to judge a society by rather than a concrete political agenda.... Read More
The Great Class Swap is a philosophical response to the societal problem that too much wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few while too much population growth is in the underclass, with both trends squeezing out the middle. The Great Class Swap is a social experiment in which wealth is redistributed from the... Read More
I have been following financial commentator, Peter Schiff, since the Ron Paul movement and his Senate run. Schiff was one of several, including Michael Burry, to forecast the 08’ financial crash. Now he is predicting a Depression that will be much worse than the 1930s. That is because it will be inflationary rather than deflationary.... Read More
While Anthony Oliver’s, Rich Men North of Richmond is untimely, it is still relevant to ongoing political and social issues. Despite the song being adopted as a MAGA anthem, Anthony Oliver stated that neither party represents him. He slammed partisan Republicans for hijacking the song, because Republicans are also “Rich Men North of Richmond.” If... Read More
The Schism Between “Racist” Whites
In a 2015 article, John Derbyshire drew a distinction between “Goodwhites” and “Badwhites.” The “Goodwhites” were the well-meaning anti-racist white liberals, whereas the “Badwhites” were those who dared to differ with modern egalitarian orthodoxies. Since everyone in Derb’s dichotomy was white and no mention was made of the often stark class differences among them —... Read More
The United States recently became the first medically advanced country with shortening rather than lengthening lifespans. Princeton University economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton in their 2020 book Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism associate this decline in life span with economic inequality rising to levels not previously recorded. To find a very... Read More
oliveranthonyoo
I’ve been especially taken by the “Rich Men North of Richmond” phenomenon that’s so big in the news these days (it’s late August of ‘23). As you know—no need for a lot of exposition here—it’s a song by a heretofore unknown singer/songwriter who goes by the name of Oliver Anthony. As The New York Times... Read More
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As everyone on earth is too well aware, a couple weeks ago, a ginger-bearded hillman with gynecomastia and dogs took the world by storm with a song about how he is poor and it’s the fault of rich people. His name is Oliver Anthony or Anthony Oliver. (I legit don’t remember – it’s a stage... Read More
homelessadultmansittingonthestreetintheshadow
Trust the late, much-missed Anthony Bourdain, the Kerouac of cooking, to blurt out the truth when nobody else would as to the root causes of homelessness. Other than libeling the poor as mental drug addicts, the rest—conservatives and liberals in cahoots—call for denser development (as greedy developers lick their chops), and certainly none of those... Read More
While the broke genius archetype may be a meme, the topic of the intelligent yet poor is especially relevant to how we view issues of wealth, privilege, status, and societal incentive structures. A stereotypical demographic profile of the smart but poor, might be of a starving artist or NEET, especially the terminally online underemployed intellectual... Read More
The prospects for UBI in light of inflation, automation, polarization, and consolidation of power
It could not be better timing for Universal Basic Income to rise in popularity and enter the public discourse, and then inflation sets in. Overall there is currently less discussion of UBI then during the 2020 election and the pandemic. The stimulus checks have been blamed for causing inflation, with the overall money supply increasing... Read More
iranianpovertyim
A previous column, “The Hell With Hunter; Call Joe In For Hearings On Treason, Cancel The Neocons While You’re At It,” ventured that, “If the GOP were seriously working for Deplorables, and not engaged in tit-for-tat political gotcha among elites—they'd pursue First Principles driven congressional oversight.” Biden would, duly, be summonsed for a hearing not... Read More
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The Crumbling of America In June of 2013 an Interstate bridge on a main commercial corridor between Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, Canada, collapsed and fell into the river below after being hit by a truck. This was not a high-speed collision; the truck simply bumped one of the main support pillars at low speed, but... Read More
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Introduction In an earlier essay on the 1917 Jewish revolution in Russia,[1] I related this quote: “The [Jews] systematically exterminated the clergy, the wealthy, the business class, the intelligent educated class, all the high-achieving segments of the population, leaving Russia with a population of ignorant workers, peasants, and a powerful Jewish ruling elite.” This is... Read More
the-american-dream-3
The US has one of the most deeply-ingrained nationalistic ideologies of any nation. Accompanying the grand mass hysterias of patriotism and freedom, one of the most pervasive links in the ideological chain that creates the American sense of identity is a belief in “The American Dream”, an imaginary ideal that offers a rags-to-riches path to... Read More
An Intellectual and Political History
Just over a decade ago, minimum wage laws had largely vanished from the American political debate. Although they still remained on the books, they had fallen sharply in real terms, with the federal figure of $7.25 per hour being roughly one-third lower than at its 1968 peak. Relative to the overall productivity of the American... Read More
Our rulers seem to think all whites live in wealth, security, and comfort. This myth is one of many that make it impossible to have an honest conversation about race. Here are five films about America’s impoverished and decidedly not privileged white underclass. Wanda (1970) A directionless woman meanders through the Pennsyltucky’s dingy and criminal... Read More
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Introduction For years, I’ve wanted to go to southern West Virginia and do original reporting on what’s alternatively called “the white death” and “the opioid crisis.” It is the greatest social malady of our time, and people who read this publication should care about its resolution more than anyone else. After more than a year... Read More
Cape Town, 2021
In boxing, there are bangers and dancers, but the very best, a Meldrick Taylor, say, could concuss and rupture yet still pirouette with finesse. If you waltz too much, you’ll lose fans. Even with a perfect record of 50-0, cake walking Floyd Mayweather has detractors. South African Corrie Sanders was no juking pussy. Although his... Read More
Penang, Malaysia, 2019
Last year in South Korea, I went into a fried chicken place and asked for half a bird. Misreading my hand gestures, the lady gave me a full one, but chopped up. It’s standard in South Korea to gorge on an entire chicken, while downing mugs of beer. Their BBQ restaurants also stuff you with... Read More
Notes on the World’s Motherlode of Moral Hypocrisy
Among the more nauseating elements of what has become the American national character is the moral preening, the lecturing of others on the virtuousness of the Exceptional Nation, on America’s incontinent goodness and sense of superiority. The world isn’t buying it. The internet makes fraud impossible. Start with the domestic. The whole world can see,... Read More
Guests Michael Hudson & Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove: April 21, 2021 (transcribed May 3, 2021): Jim Vrettos: So, Michael, Jonathan. Thank you so very, very much for being here. Jonathan, you're from... We're looking at you from North Carolina there and Michael is in Queens. You've both had tremendous influence in your respective fields. Spiritual economic activist... Read More
putinhero
Why is Vladimir Putin standing up to the richest and most powerful men in the world? Why is he bad-mouthing their "pet project" Globalization and trash-talking their "Great Reset"? Does he really think these corporate mandarins and "silver spoon" elites are going to listen to what he has to say or does he realize that... Read More
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The racial wealth gap has become a heated issue as part of the ongoing woke crusade, but rather than the economic elite, it is average, workaday White Americans who are the scapegoat. White millennials in particular—ironically given their role as some of the most vocal carriers of the woke torch—will be the primary bearers of... Read More
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They Say Goodbye. We Say Hello
[center/] In 1850, when Western nations were the richest on earth, capitalists created the first market economy. By privatizing credit, land, and labor, they allowed human society to be regulated by the market. In 1950, when China was the poorest nation on earth, communists created an organic economy by subordinating credit, land, and labor to... Read More
Truck driving remains one of the last few professions in America that can provide stable and decently compensated employment Workers in this field are generally thought of as white men from the heartland of America. During the Covid lockdowns truckers have managed to keep stores stocked, yet at the same time, they have also been... Read More
blm1nj
The ongoing anti-white rampage of the Unpopular Front -- Millennial lumpen-bourgeoisie, black criminals, academics, journalists, and woke capital -- has led to more questions than answers. Some call them communists, but the terrorists do not have any economic demands. On the contrary, they have a close relationship with corporate America. Conservatives are desperate to link... Read More
Economic activity across the country has collapsed, GDP is shrinking at the fastest pace on record, and the economic data is worse than anytime in history. Every sector of the economy is contracting and every economic indicator is pointing down. According to economist Nouriel Roubini, the country is headed towards a decade of "depression and... Read More
With the world becoming so stupid, by design, there is no mind or focus left to pay attention to any of the arts, so beauty is increasingly perverted and language sickens, by design. Numbed by nonstop media sewage, just about every man is divorced from his own thoughts even, so of course he can barely... Read More
The City’s Socialist-Communist Government Is at a Loss as to Why
Le Monde has an interesting article on Parisian social housing policy which is quite indicative of how quaint official French thinking is on immigration-gentrification-segregation-inequality-cum-terrorism: Following the terrorist attacks of January 2015, the President of the Republic, François Hollande, gathered several interministerial committees, announced a series of measures in to promote social cohesion, and managed to... Read More
Allentown, 2012
My writing on society and politics has made me quite a few friends, some I’ve been able to visit on their home turf, from Scranton to Burgazada, to Leipzig. Others have come to me. In July of 2018, just before I left the US for good, I had a few beers with Bill, who drove... Read More
the-lighthouse-2017
In 2017, Chuck Orloski’s 27-year marriage collapsed. Chased from his home and broke, he had to take refuge at Lighthouse, a Scranton group home run by a blind, 54-year-old nun, Lindy Morelli. That Thanksgiving, I took a four-hour bus ride from Philly to stay five days with my friend, Chuck, at the Lighthouse. The rolling... Read More
Increasingly, social science is dominated by Leftist ideologues who use the remaining respect that academia still has among the public to inculcate students and public alike with their equalitarian dogmas. But there are honorable exceptions. One of these: Peter Turchin, a Russian who is professor of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut. Turchin, who... Read More
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Tires are burning, smoke is rising towards the sky. It is October, the 18th day of the month, the capital city of Lebanon, in the past known as the “Paris of the East”, is covered in smoke. For years I was warning that the country governed by corrupt, indifferent elites, could not hold together, indefinitely.... Read More
A Total-Returns Profile of Economic Polarization in America
Based on work with Dirk Bezemer, with charts by Howard Reed Polarization in America, 23 September 2019 Those who praise the post-2008 economy as a successful recovery point to the fact that the stock market has soared to all-time highs, while the unemployment rate has fallen to a decade-low. But is the stock market a... Read More
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Trust the late Anthony Bourdain, the Kerouac of cooking, to blurt out the truth when nobody else would. Following his Jack Kerouac wanderlust, Bourdain had arrived in Seattle to spotlight the manner in which high-tech was changing the city, draining it of its character and of the many quirky characters that made Seattle what it... Read More
oakland-2013
As writer or thinker, Jack London can’t touch George Orwell, but he’s nearly the Brit’s equal when it comes to describing society’s bottom. To both, being a writer is as much a physical as an intellectual endeavor. Wading into everything, they braved all discomforts and dangers. This attitude has become very rare, and not just... Read More
If you’re a member of the working class, 1/3 of your pay has been stolen from you. You would think this would be front page news every day until the problem is fixed. Not only is that a huge amount of money for a huge portion of the country, but you would expect our left... Read More
ea-kly-2019x-2
There is a dearth of writing about work, its variety, tedium and grind. This is understandable, since most writers have devoted much of their time to writing and reading, and not painting houses, cleaning toilets, washing dishes, planting crops or performing mind numbingly monotonous tasks on an assembly line, etc. This blind spot or ignorance... Read More
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Many have already noticed: The U.S. really, really doesn’t feel like the world leader, or even as a ‘first world country’. Of course, I write that sarcastically, as I detest expressions like ‘first world’, and the ‘third world’. But readers know what I mean. Bridges, subways, inner cities, everything is crumbling, falling apart. When I... Read More
American Homeless picking their way through garbage
America as Others See it
Americans are brought up to believe that the United States is a shining city on a hill, a light to mankind, that the world envies us for our values and freedoms, and hates us because we have them. This is ground into us from birth. Those of us now long in the tooth remember the... Read More
Saigon, 2019
I’ve spent 13 of the last 17 months outside the USA, and have no plan or wish to return. I wouldn’t mind an honest cheeseburger now and then, however, but each version I’ve had here has been awful, with the worst something that came in a plastic bag, with the “burger” a brownish orange paste... Read More
Aristotle in blue. The consensus among political and economic leaders today is that we must maximize economic growth. This assumption affects virtually the entire political spectrum, with the exception of a radical minority of anti-growth Greens advocating décroissance (“de-growth”). Everybody would like more money in their personal pocketbook, on their company’s balance sheet, and/or the... Read More
Life History Theory and the Crisis of the White Working Class
One of the best-selling nonfiction books of 2012 was Charles Murray’s Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010.[1] It was widely reviewed, including an informative essay by Roger Devlin in this publication.[2] As stated in the subtitle, Murray focused on White Americans, and he saw a growing class divide among this demographic. Paradoxically, by... Read More
ea-kly-2-2019
I painted houses for a decade, and on our crews, we always knew of each other’s relative competence, willingness to work, sense of responsibility, substance addictions, if any, and, ultimately, character. My roommate, Jay, for example, really didn’t give a fuck, for he was often late, but somehow always rehired, for our boss, Joe LeBlanc,... Read More