Elon, Oligarchy, and Tesla: Bernie and AOC Don’t Get It

Hey there friends! Below are the articles and references I chewed on as part of preparing this week’s video commentary. Enjoy!

• Tesla vehicles vandalized across US since Elon Musk began White House role - ABC News

  • A solid compilation of the attacks on Tesla dealerships nationwide to date.

• A comprehensive look at DOGE’s firings and layoffs so far - AP

  • A useful reference that will be out of date FAST and DOGE and President Trump march through the administrative state.

• Is Tesla cooked? - The Verge

  • Commentary on the market and public opinion assault on Tesla.

• Andrew Mellon on Wikipedia

  • Not a bad starting point for Andrew Mellon.

• Warren Harding: The US President Who Reduced Federal Spending by Nearly 50% in Just Two Years - Foundation for Economic Education

  • A quick summary of the incredible turn-around on taxes and spending under the Harding administration with Mellon helming Treasury.

• The Urge to Purge - Paul Krugman on Andrew Mellon - New York Times

  • I find Krugman to be both wrong on the economics of the depression and partisan hack more broadly. But this is a solid snapshot of the modern critic of Mellon.

• Hoover’s Economic Policies - EconLib

  • A great pushback on Krugman from longtime economist friend of mine, Steven Horwitz.

• US National Debt by Year Since 1900 - Yahoo Finance

  • This article offers a step-by-step picture of the US Federal Government’s debt in four year increments, drawing from Treasury data with inflation adjustments provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

• Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens

  • This is the blockbuster 2014 study by Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page that went viral for claiming to show that the only people whose preferences were reflected in US public policy and legislation are the top 10%.

• Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy - BBC

  • A BBC report on the 2014 Gilens and Page study which shows the way the press ran with their narrative.

• Remember that study saying America is an oligarchy? 3 rebuttals say it’s wrong. - Vox

  • A very interesting summary of work pushing back on that viral 2014 paper which led to popular conclusions that the US political system is only responsive to elites in the top 10% of income.

• Corruption is Legal in America - Represent.us

  • The video explainer that visualizes the 2014 study.

• Get Konnected with The Kronies Action Figures

  • My 2014 spoof of 1990s cartoons/action figures satirizing crony capitalism in America. Fun fact: this anti-corporatism video series was funded by the much-maligned and misunderstood Charles Koch philanthropies. Charles HATES crony capitalism, regardless of what his adversaries like to claim.

• Comparing 1955’s Fortune 500 to 2019’s Fortune 500 - Foundation for Economic Education

  • A nice summary of the data on America’s business dynamism and creative destruction by economist Mark Perry. He’s a great source for counter-intuitively optimistic work.

• Progressivity of Taxes in OECD Countries, Mid-2000s - Mercatus Center

  • A slightly out-of-date, because it’s pre-2017 tax law, but still mostly relevant review of US taxes compared with the rest of the industrialized world, showing that the US taxes relies more on taxing the rich than everyone else by economist Veronique de Rugy

• The OECD Says the United States Has the Most Progressive Tax System - Tax Foundation

  • Similar and complimentary work to review how the US relies on taxing the rich more than European nations.