Sophie Bandarkar is a writer, organizer, and PhD student in economics. She is based in Paris.
For years, AI companies promised their product would become a democratized and abundant utility. But as the sector pivots toward business clients and financial and environmental costs rise, the question is whether its unequal gains justify the price.
Despite rising inequality, poor job numbers, and Donald Trump’s mass deportations, the economy grew by a remarkable 4.3% last year, mostly thanks to the AI industry. This success masks an economy highly dependent on debt and state subsidies.
The tech giants behind the AI boom have become too big to fail and are using their position to mount an assault on labor.
Fed chair Jerome Powell announced a quarter-point interest rate cut last week in an effort to prevent an economic slowdown. But a primary driver of the current crisis is Donald Trump’s brutal immigration policy.
Donald Trump’s mass deportations will do little to improve the lives of American workers. But he is fueling a deportation-industrial complex that funnels billions of dollars into the hands of private companies.
While Donald Trump’s attacks on the Fed are deeply authoritarian, the institution itself is far from blameless. From the 2008 crash to the pandemic, its primary aim has been to protect the interests of the wealthy.
Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell recently warned that the United States was at risk of stagflation, a combination of high inflation and economic slowdown. When this happened in the 1970s, capitalists used the crisis to attack organized labor.