Ralph welcomes journalist, Alec MacGillis, author of “Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America” about how Amazon continues to suck the life out of Main Street and what can be done about it. And the director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, Dr. Michael Carome, gives us the latest on our approach to the Covid pandemic. Plus, we answer a listener about how to avoid flying on Boeing’s 737 Max.
Alec MacGillis is a journalist who covers politics and government for ProPublica. He is the author of The Cynic, a biography of Senator Mitch McConnell, and Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America.
When I asked [Nick Hanauer] why Amazon wasn’t considering putting its second headquarters in a part of the country that could really use it. In a city like St. Louis or Baltimore or Cleveland that could really use that kind of boost. And in one fell swoop the company could just do a lot to rebalance the landscape of opportunity and prosperity in the country… He laughed in my face, essentially, and said ‘You do not understand Jeff Bezos at all, do you?’”
Alec MacGillis, author of Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America
On Jeff Bezos saying that we need to go to the moon, because we’ll run out of energy on earth: “Well, of course, [Jeff Bezos] has extraterrestrial business along with Elon Musk. But it’s totally childish to make a comment like that, when certainly the sun is not going to leave the Earth. And wind is not going to leave the earth.”
Ralph Nader
“His (Jeff Bezos’s) obsession with space travel, which goes all the way back to his childhood, is also an important facet of him. It speaks to… he’s untethered from the mundanities that the rest of us worry about. He sees himself as separate from that.”
Alec MacGillis, author of Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America
“I spotted Amazon rising a long time ago. And I was really amazed at how many signals Amazon gave to its competitors and opponents that were ignored… It was quite clear what Amazon’s strategy was going to be, right off in the mid 1990s.”
Ralph Nader
Dr. Michael Carome is an expert on issues of drug and medical device safety, FDA oversight, and healthcare policy. He is the director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group.
“The amount of money– $25-30 billion is what we believe the US should make available to make vaccines for the entire world– is a drop in the bucket. We are faced with an international public health catastrophe that is getting worse by the day. And what we need is to not have the monopoly of the vaccine makers stand in the way of the ability of countries to manufacture vaccines for their populations.”
Dr. Michael Carome, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group
Winning and Losing in One-Click America