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Created
Sun, 08/01/2023 - 03:51
What has always bothered me about the “experimentalist” school is the false sense of certainty it conveys. The basic idea is that if we have a “really good instrument” we can come up with “convincing” estimates of “causal effects” that are not “too sensitive to assumptions.” Elsewhere I have written  an extensive critique of this […]
Created
Sun, 08/01/2023 - 02:30

The New York Times had a major article reporting on how many people in South Korea, Hong Kong, and Japan are being forced to work well into their seventies because they lack sufficient income to retire. The piece presents this as a problem of aging societies, which will soon hit the United States and other […]

The post Contrary to What the NYT Tells You, the Problem in An Aging Society is Distribution appeared first on Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Created
Sun, 08/01/2023 - 02:30
Is the Obstruction of Justice Caucus Why is this unsurprising? Newly elected House Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave away the store he’s so desperate to manage. Here’s what CNN reports he promised GOP extremists in exchange for their votes: Kyle Cheney scrutinizes the proposed GOP bill to establish that Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Those provisions did not appear in earlier versions, Cheney notes. Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel) adds, “A Jim Jordan drafted document allowing for the interference into ongoing criminal investigations is what got Scott Perry, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, and Andy Biggs — all of whom sought pardons — to allow McCarthy to get a gavel.” “I would like it be presented as the scandal it is,” Wheeler continues. “But have very little hope in the competence or integrity of many congressional reporters.” I’m already looking for any deus ex machina than can spare the republic from the MAGA arsonists before the battle over raising the debt ceiling spawns a global financial crisis this fall. Jack Smith is one, possibly. Fulton Co., Ga.
Created
Sun, 08/01/2023 - 01:15
Left-wing president shows what can happen with political will to do what’s right for ordinary people New Brazilian president Lula da Silva is reversing the cuts to Brazil’s health programme imposed by right-wing former president Jair Bolsonaro. Da Silva, who won the presidential election at the end of October despite extensive right-wing attempts to rig […]
Created
Sun, 08/01/2023 - 01:00
Someone’s shooting at Democratic politicians’ homes, offices It’s called the Dark Corner. In the remote foothills of extreme northeast Greenville County, South Carolina, it was a region known for hidden moonshine stills even one hundred years after the Civil War. Occasionally the Dark Corner made the news at 11. Someone would pump a 12-gauge round through a local’s front door and drive off. No one ever seemed to get hurt. Family feuds were still a thing in the Dark Corner. This is different. And similar. Let’s pray it gets no worse (Associated Press): Bullets flew through one home’s front door and garage. At another home, three bullets went into the bedroom of a 10-year-old girl in a series of shootings that had at least one thing in common: They all targeted the homes or offices of elected Democratic officials in New Mexico. Nobody was injured in the shootings that are being investigated by local and federal authorities. Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said they’re working to determine if the attacks that started in early December and were scattered around the state’s largest city are connected.
Created
Sat, 07/01/2023 - 16:48
Back in the Paleolithic days of blogging, I got interested in the relationship between philosophical thought and political action, particularly in the cases of Hayek and Heidegger and their support for Pinochet and Hitler respectively. I think the evidence is in on Hayek (see here and here), so I won’t discuss it further. In Heidegger’s […]
Created
Sat, 07/01/2023 - 15:34

Contrary to the popular perception of Los Angeles as a youth paradise, with surfing and an “endless summer” of partying, LA in the 1960s was a hothouse of activism. The book Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties by American Marxist Mike Davis and Jon Wiener is its history.

The post LA’s 1960s rebellion a guide to the fire next time appeared first on Solidarity Online.