In a recent presentation, @benbraun.bsky.social cited shocking research how illness and even death increases as private equity buys care facilities. Results will be less dismal for festivals presumably, but I strongly doubt that it will improve cultural and community value
Loud music, silent takeovers: How private equity is reshaping Europe’s festival scene
The American private equity firm KKR now owns many of Europe's biggest festivals. The billion-euro purchase by a fund with links to Donald Trump has raised fears of rising ticket prices, and questions about the cultural values these events claim to uphold.
The U.S. is slashing funding for scientific research, after decades of deep investment. Here’s some of what those taxpayer dollars created
Science seldom works in straight lines. Sometimes it’s “applied” to solve specific problems: Let’s put people on the moon; we need a Covid vaccine. Much of the time it’s “basic,” aimed at understanding, say, cell division or the physics of cloud formation, with the hope that — somehow, someday — the knowledge will prove useful. Basic science is applied science that hasn’t been applied yet.
That’s the premise on which the United States, since World War II, has invested heavily in science. The government spends $200 billion annually on research and development, knowing that payoffs might be decades away; that figure
would drop sharply under President Trump’s proposed 2026 budget. “Basic research is the pacemaker of technological progress,” Vannevar Bush, who laid out the postwar schema for government research support, wrote in a 1945 report to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Look no further than Google, which got its start in 1994 with a $4 million federal grant to help build digital libraries; the company is now a $2 trillion verb.
