Larry Summers distraction, SNAP governance, and Eli Lily’s David Ricks outs himself

Nov 18

MAGAISM/BRO CULTURE CRONYISM/CEOs RULE!/ELONISM

I am deeply ashamed': Larry Summers to step back from public commitments after new Epstein emails

Senator Elizabeth Warren: “[Summers] cannot be trusted to advise our nation’s politicians, policymakers and institutions — or teach a generation of students at Harvard or anywhere else.”
And an unidentified Trump administration official told Politico that companies and organizations should end their association with Summers.
The former Treasury secretary, along with Bill Clinton and the Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman, are among the Democratic figures whom the Justice Department is investigating over Epstein ties — at President Trump’s behest.

Economist Warns That Trump’s Investments in the Tech Industry Could Crash the Whole Economy

Italian economist Mariana Mazzucato, a University College London economics professor:

“I think the kind of capitalism Trump has is crony capitalism.”
“I would describe crony capitalism as Mafia-like. You’re showing your upper hand. You’re handing out favors to some. But then divide and conquer. Picking and choosing without a particular strategy.”
She argues that the Intel deal is poorly designed because it doesn’t have any conditions to incentivize the company to be build new products, while the government simply acts as a passive investor.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it will not express opinions to requests from companies asking to exclude shareholder proposals from their proxy voting materials during the 2025-2026 proxy season, effectively allowing companies to avoid voting on issues proposed by investors such as climate, sustainability and diversity at annual meetings.

STAKEHOLDERS RULE!

Ford CEO says he has 5,000 open mechanic jobs with 6-figure salaries from the shortage of manually skilled workers: ‘We are in trouble in our country’

WOKE DATA

Nearly half of LGBTQ characters AXED from TV amid Trump-era rollback of woke DEI initiatives

According to Deadline, around 41% of the 489 LGBTQ characters that were on the small screen this year will not return due to series cancellations and endings.

Jeff Bezos is putting $6.2 billion—and himself as co-CEO—behind a new AI startup

OpenAI accused of ‘consistent and dangerous pattern’ rushing product to market that is ‘inherently unsafe or lacking in needed guardrails’

The nonprofit Public Citizen is now demanding OpenAI withdraw Sora 2 from the public, writing in a letter to the company and CEO Sam Altman that the app’s hasty release so that it could launch ahead of competitors shows a “consistent and dangerous pattern of OpenAI rushing to market with a product that is either inherently unsafe or lacking in needed guardrails.”
Sora 2, the letter says, shows a “reckless disregard” for product safety, as well as people’s rights to their own likeness and the stability of democracy.
OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Eli Lilly CEO says he has 'at least 1 or 2 AIs running' during every meeting he's in

David Ricks: Ricks said he doesn't like OpenAI's ChatGPT for science-related questions — "It's too verbal," he said. Instead, he prefers Anthropic's Claude and xAI's Grok.
Still, he has to be careful to watch for hallucinations, an issue the frontier model companies are still trying to tamp down.