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Megan Tobias Neely

@megantobiasneely.bsky.social
2.7K followers 3.5K following 42 posts

Assistant Professor of Sociology @Colorado.Edu. Author of #HedgedOut (tinyurl.com/Hedged-Out) & #Divested (tinyurl.com/Divested-Book)

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Reposted by Megan Tobias Neely
Melissa Gira Grant @melissagiragrant.com · 08/08/2026
“…the latest crop of progressive candidates are campaigning like organizers. In doing so, they’re revealing weaknesses in the Democratic machine that have existed since Barack Obama ran for president—the first time.” - @tressiemcphd.bsky.social
nytimes.com
Opinion | Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Organizers? (Gift Article)
Democrats are going to have to organize voters — not just fund-raise off them.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Correct. (Word counts etc.) It is also hard to overstate how much the establishment democrats and leadership were and are aligned with technology. The SV culture, the money, and the theory of mind — they are enamored with it.
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Megan Tobias Neely @megantobiasneely.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
A good one to share with students: www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | I’m Begging You: Never Write With A.I.
It’s bad for your brain and worse for democracy.
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firuzeh shokooh valle @firuzehsv.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
My brilliant friend @ethelmickey.bsky.social's book "Networking to Nowhere" is out today! This is such an important book to understand the paradox--and failures--of "networking," hailed as the ultimate portal to success for women in the corporate tech sector.
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American Sociological Association @asanews.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
ASA member Ethel L. Mickey @ethelmickey.bsky.social @csusb.bsky.social draws on ethnographic research in a top tech firm to reveal how “ideal” networking practices, such as informal referrals and after-hours schmoozing, exclude women and people of color. @ucpress.bsky.social
bit.ly
Networking to Nowhere by Ethel Mickey - Paper
Scholarship is a powerful tool for changing how people think, plan, and govern. By giving voice to bright minds and bold ideas, we seek to foster understanding and drive progressive change.
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Philip N Cohen @philipncohen.com · 14/05/2026
Two new facts stand out: 1. 85% of hallucinated citations in preprints are also in the subsequent journal version (thanks, peer review!) 2. Fake cites more likely to use the names of (male) scholars who are already highly cited, creating a fake-citation Matthew effect. arxiv.org/abs/2605.07723
arxiv.org
LLM hallucinations in the wild: Large-scale evidence from non-existent citations
Large language models (LLMs) are known to generate plausible but false information across a wide range of contexts, yet the real-world magnitude and consequences of this hallucination problem remain p...
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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 01/05/2026
In @nytopinion.nytimes.com “Many are convinced that advanced A.I. will soon surpass human capabilities,” writes Jasmine Sun. “This would produce tremendous growth and scientific achievement, but it would also displace millions of jobs as fewer humans are needed to make the economy run.”
nyti.ms
Opinion | Silicon Valley Is Bracing for a Permanent Underclass
The people building A.I. fear that we have only a short time before advanced A.I. disrupts the labor force.
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Megan Tobias Neely @megantobiasneely.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Money Talks: The AI Job Apocalypse is Avoidable “MIT professor Daron Acemoglu explains why a future of pro-worker AI is possible…if we choose it.”https://slate.com/podcasts/slate-money/2026/04/business-mit-professor-daron-acemoglu-explains-pro-worker-ai
slate.com
Money Talks: AI Doesn’t Have to Steal Your Job
MIT professor Daron Acemoglu explains why we have to choose a pro-worker AI future.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 29/04/2026
this is very funny as well as good evidence — you know, beyond what we can see with our own eyes — that there is not some epidemic of anti-white discrimination
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 28/04/2026
More details on the firing of the National Science Board. The NSF now has no director, deputy director, or board. They have issued almost no new awards in 2026. The plan appears to be to completely destroyed the agency. The details are horrifying and have Russ Vought written all over them.
insidehighered.com
Board Ouster Raises Further Concerns About NSF’s Future
The White House axed all members of the board overseeing the National Science Foundation Friday, leaving the agency with no board, director or deputy director. It finally provided a reason Monday afte...
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Megan Tobias Neely @megantobiasneely.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
It’s the anniversary of the Hedged Out audiobook. It explains the close-knit patrimonial ties that organize Wall Street and beyond, making the Epstein criminal rings possible. Check it out through your library on Libby or 70% off here: www.audiobooks.com/promotions/p...
audiobooks.com
70% OFF Hedged Out: Inequality and Insecurity on Wall Street
Who do you think of when you imagine a hedge fund manager? A greedy fraudster, a visionary entrepreneur, a wolf of Wall Street? These tropes capture the public imagination of a successful hedge fund manager. But behind the designer suits, helicopter commutes, and illicit pursuits are the everyday stories of people who work in the hedge fund industry—many of whom don't realize they fall within the 1 percent that drives the divide between the richest and the rest. With Hedged Out, former hedge fund analyst Megan Tobias Neely gives listeners an outsider's insider perspective on Wall Street and its enduring culture of inequality. Hedged Out dives into the upper echelons of Wall Street, where elite white masculinity is the standard measure for the capacity to manage risk and insecurity. Facing an unpredictable and risky stock market, hedge fund workers protect their interests by working long hours and building tight-knit networks with people who look and behave like them. Using ethnographic vignettes and her own industry experience, Neely showcases the voices of managers and other workers to illustrate how this industry of politically mobilized elites excludes people on the basis of race, class, and gender. Neely shows how this system of elite power and privilege not only sustains itself but builds over time as the beneficiaries concentrate their resources.
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Megan Tobias Neely @megantobiasneely.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
“I’m done ceding my brain — the core of all that makes me who I am — to the financial interests of a small number of technology billionaires or the shortsighted conveniences of hyperactive communication styles.”
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Megan Tobias Neely @megantobiasneely.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
A good read for the first day of class: There’s a Good Reason You Can’t Concentrate www.nytimes.com/2026/03/27/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | There’s a Good Reason You Can’t Concentrate
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Megan Tobias Neely @megantobiasneely.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
We Are Witnessing the Rise of a New Aristocracy. “Chatbots are no substitute for people who can call the right people when high-stakes deals go awry.”https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/08/opinion/ai-wealth-inequality-jobs-investment.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
nytimes.com
Opinion | We Are Witnessing the Rise of a New Aristocracy
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Opinion Today @opiniontoday.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
It’s Called Silicon Sampling, and It’s Going to Ruin Public Opinion Polling: Pure fictions are on the brink of being treated as scientific and political knowledge. (@leifw.bsky.social and @beenwrekt.bsky.social, The New York Times-unlocked) www.nytimes.com/2026/04/06/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | It’s Called Silicon Sampling, and It’s Going to Ruin Public Opinion Polling
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
the levels of elite impunity we are seeing now and the levels of war crimes we are seeing now are two aspects of the same path of historical development. right now they see war as our problem (and their investment opportunity). it is world historically important that we make war their problem again
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Megan Tobias Neely @megantobiasneely.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...
insidehighered.com
Why Fascists Hate Sociology (opinion)
The anti-sociology politicians are on to something in grasping the field’s power.
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 06/04/2026
A major strike of beef workers pauses in Colorado—but workers say the fight isn’t over
motherjones.com
A major strike of beef workers pauses in Colorado—but workers say the fight isn’t over
The work stoppage came as the price of beef has spiked over the past year.
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Max Boot @maxboot.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
A study in September by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington think tank, warned that without a reversal, the cuts to science could shrink the U.S. economy by nearly $1 trillion over 10 years. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/04/b...
nytimes.com
Trump Slashed Science Funding. Now the U.S. Could Face a Costly Brain Drain.
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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮 @joshuafoust.com · 03/04/2026
“They’re destroying more than fifty research facilities across thirty-one states, labs that house decades of irreplaceable long-term science…And they’re replacing all of it — the offices, the scientists, the institutional knowledge, the professional independence — with fifteen political appointees”
hatchmag.com
Trump administration orders dismantling of the U.S. Forest Service
Late Tuesday afternoon, with the subtlety of a wrecking ball and the morality of a foreclosure notice, the Trump administration announced the most devastating attack on the U.S. Forest Service in the ...
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Jessica Valenti @jessicavalenti.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
I started covering this last year, and I can't overstate how important this is: the Trump administration officially labeled some of the most commonly-used forms of birth control as 'abortion' jessica.substack.com/i/173447780/...
jessica.substack.com
The Trump Administration Says IUDs and the Pill Are Abortions
9.12.25
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Nina Bandelj @ninabandelj.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Happy global birthday to OVERINVESTED! 🎂 Celebrate with me & join a discussion organized by Dr. @audreyharroche.bsky.social in conversation with Prof. Tina Miller at Oxford Brookes University 📅 30 April, 16:00–17:00 (UK time) Online event open to all; register here: brookes.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
brookes.zoom.us
Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: CYP Book Launch: Nina Bandelj, "Overinvested: The Emotional Economy of Modern Parenting", with Tina Miller. After registering, you will receive a confirmati...
Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: CYP Book Launch: Nina Bandelj, "Overinvested: The Emotional Economy of Modern Parenting", with Tina Miller. After registering, you will receive a confirmati...
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Molly @thistlesister.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
We didn’t hire him. The oligarchs installed him.
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A Jean Stevenson @amandajean.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
With this many reasons for not having children, reenforcing compulsory childbearing by retrenching feminine gender norms is a rational pronatalist intervention. They don't care that it's odious. They're doing it anyway.
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Dr. Aaron Thierry @thierryaaron.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
4/ His contemporary Barry Commoner disagreed fundamentally. The Closing Circle (1971) located the crisis not in how many people existed but in how capitalism organized production, synthetics, petrochemicals, planned obsolescence, and distributed its costs onto the poor.
Barry Commoner's The Closing Circle
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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
The Epstein files document what many women researchers have long experienced but rarely seen laid bare so starkly: exclusion operating behind closed doors, shaping who gets funded, invited, mentored, and taken seriously. How many of these networks, norms, and gatekeepers remain in place?
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Jacobin @jacobinmag.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
A former Deutsche Bank compliance officer told the FBI she was fired in 2018 after flagging suspicious activity in accounts linked to Jeffrey Epstein and Jared Kushner, offering yet another example of how they operated above the law.
jacobin.com
The Epstein Whistleblower Who Was Silenced
A former Deutsche Bank compliance officer told the FBI she was fired in 2018 after flagging suspicious activity in accounts linked to Jeffrey Epstein and Jared Kushner, offering yet another example of how they operated above the law.
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Philine Widmer @phinifa.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
Can feed algorithms shape what people think about politics? Our paper "The Political Effects of X's Feed Algorithm" is out today in Nature and answers "Yes." www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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The Wall Street Journal @wsj.com · 18/02/2026
Tax avoidance by the superwealthy is an economic issue as well as a political one. on.wsj.com/4cFXA5s
on.wsj.com
Heard on the Street: Debate about how much tax billionaires pay is likely to grow as America’s fiscal situation deteriorates and its wealth gap widens
Tax avoidance by the superwealthy is an economic issue as well as a political one.
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Megan Tobias Neely @megantobiasneely.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
A colleague and I were talking about the need to stress to students that LLMs cannot replace the thinking and analysis done through writing so I thought I’d reshare this editorial in case it’s helpful in the classroom: www.nature.com/articles/s44...
nature.com
Writing is thinking - Nature Reviews Bioengineering
On the value of human-generated scientific writing in the age of large-language models.
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The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 15/02/2026
Column: The mortgage delinquency rates for lower-income households are surging. Meanwhile, folks in the highest-income areas are doing just fine. It’s another reminder that the U.S. economy is largely benefiting people with means.
washingtonpost.com
Column | A new mortgage crisis is quietly hitting those who can least afford it
This week, there was yet another warning that many homeowners might be headed for trouble.
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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 10/02/2026
Remember last week how Dr. Oz called AI the best solution for rural healthcare shortages? Well, a new study finds that when patients turn to chatbots for health advice, they end up taking the wrong steps and getting the wrong diagnosis more than half the time. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/w...
nytimes.com
Health Advice From A.I. Chatbots Is Frequently Wrong, Study Shows
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Senator Patty Murray @murray.senate.gov · 18/12/2025
Washington state has assistance for families affected by the flooding and severe weather. Get more info below. ⬇️ www.dshs.wa.gov/alert/food-b...
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NPR @npr.org · 20/12/2025
Mass firings, buyouts and heightened uncertainty led to an exodus of federal workers in 2025. More than 300,000 employees will be out of the government by the end of December.
n.pr
Under Trump, 317,000 workers are out of the government. Here are 3 of their stories
Mass firings, buyouts and heightened uncertainty led to an exodus of federal workers in 2025. More than 300,000 employees will be out of the government by the end of December.
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Aaron Reeves @aaronreeves.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
If you know someone who is thinking about doing a PhD and who is interested in health then please share this advert with them. It is an ESRC funded PhD working on trade unions and health as part of a collaboration with me and the @tuc.org.uk @lsesociology.bsky.social www.lse.ac.uk/study-at-lse...
lse.ac.uk
LSE Collaborative Studentship with Trades Union Congress
LSE Collaborative Studentship with Trades Union Congress
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ASA Theory Section @asatheory.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
Do you teach theory? Help us build a community syllabus database by sharing yours. Find our email in the bio.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
Most of these people are deeply trained, or at least highly educated, in humanities. Knowing isn’t being.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 1965: 20-1 CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 1990: 75-1 CEO-to-worker pay ratio today: 280-to-1 Trickle-down economics was always a sham. Nothing has ever trickled down.
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Sumitra Badrinathan @sumitra.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
there’s a lot of talk about big tech and corporations but so many international academic colleagues are also on H1Bs. no university is going to pay 100k extra a year to keep them. if this holds, it would essentially mean the end of foreigners on tenure track jobs at US universities.
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Program on US-Japan Relations, Harvard University @harvardusjapan.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
Congratulations to Vivian Shaw @vivianshaw.bsky.social (2018-19) and Kanoko Kamata (2017-18) on their co-authored article, "Compartmentalizing Intersectionality: Feminist Translations in Anti-Racist and Anti-Rape Activism in Japan," in Gender & Society. doi.org/10.1177/0891...
doi.org
Compartmentalizing Intersectionality: Feminist Translations in Anti-Racist and Anti-Rape Activism in Japan - Vivian Shaw, Kanoko Kamata, 2025
Feminists scholars based in the United States have long struggled with applying intersectionality to a transnational lens. This article explores intersectionali...
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Megan Tobias Neely @megantobiasneely.bsky.social · 25/05/2025
Hedged Out featured in @wsj.com in a piece by Matt Wirz on how private-managers influence the U.S. economy and politics in alarming ways that should concern us all—and especially students, workers, and retirees. www.wsj.com/finance/inve...
wsj.com
Four Books Sound the Alarm About the Power of Private Equity
Private-managers now influence the U.S. economy and politics in ways few Americans understand.
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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 14/04/2025
Breaking News: Harvard rejected the Trump administration’s demands, including that it submit to monitoring and reduce the power of faculty and students.
nytimes.com
Harvard Will Not Comply With a List of Trump Administration Demands
Federal officials said Harvard must enact “merit-based reform” in hiring and admissions, among other things. Harvard called the demands unlawful.
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Uché Blackstock, MD @ucheblackstockmd.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
More than 350,000 noncitizen healthcare workers keep our system afloat—many serving in underserved areas. Yet they now face possible deportation. These workers aren’t just essential—they’re irreplaceable. Let’s protect and uplift those who protect our health. www.medpagetoday.com/publichealth...
medpagetoday.com
Over 350K Health Workers Face Deportation Risk
Survey study quantifies the role of immigrants, both documented and undocumented, in healthcare
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Karen Benjamin Guzzo @karenguzzo.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
In 2017, the Trump administration tried to kill >$200 million in federal grants for teen pregnancy programs bc it wanted to prioritize abstinence-first approaches. The courts prevented them from terminating w/o cause, so the admin inserted the “effectuates” language into OMB guidance on grants.
wapo.st
These 5 words have killed millions in grants and advanced Trump’s agenda
Five words in an obscure regulation are being deployed by Trump’s appointees to kill grants unilaterally across the government.
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joseph francis @joefrancis.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
My new paper is “The Autumn of the White Patriarch: Identity and Inequality in American Capitalism.” This is the key chart. It shows how white men’s share of national income has fallen since the 1960s. Imho, this is why we have such identity politics on the US right today. 1/11
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joseph francis @joefrancis.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
This is the most controversial graph from my new paper. It suggests that Piketty’s “golden age of social democracy” after World War II only really existed in the United States if you were white and male. 1/5
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Megan Tobias Neely @megantobiasneely.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
Some good news that may have gotten lost amid the headlines: Costco is raising the average hourly wage to over $30 after negotiations with their workers’ union. www.reuters.com/business/ret...
reuters.com
Costco to raise hourly pay for most US store workers to over $30
Retailer Costco Wholesale will increase pay for most of its hourly U.S. store workers to more than $30, according to a memo sent to employees this week.
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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
"The mythology of founders and Silicon Valley too often obscures the indispensable role of American taxpayers in the innovation economy"—my recent remarks to @bloomberg.com about the critical importance of federally funded research. www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...
bloomberg.com
Trump’s Big Gamble on the Future of AI Development
The new administration rethinks public funding for research, leaving it to private companies to chart the path ahead.
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Mike McCarthy @itsmccarthy.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Trump's budget will starve the poor to feed the rich. The Republican Party are creating a true oligarchy. To fight it and build wealth and power for working-class communities, we need economic democracy. Read the op-ed I wrote with Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib for The Guardian.
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Roosevelt Institute @rooseveltinstitute.org · 06/03/2025
The U.S. economy favors billionaires over families. The GOP’s $4.5tn tax giveaway proves it—paid for by gutting Medicaid & more. @itsmccarthy.bsky.social & Rashida Tlaib on building a democratic economy that puts power in workers’ hands @theguardian.com ⤵️ www.theguardian.com/commentis...
Quote that reads: In a democratic economy, ownership is extended beyond the wealthy few, to public and private institutions driven by the interests of ordinary people
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