Reading
I’m in the midst of recovering from covid—my family and I were hit with it two weeks ago—and doing a fair amount of reading. Just prior to getting sick, I had completed a long piece on oligarchy and the Constitution, which is actually the fourth in a series of pieces I’ve completed over the last few months that I expect to appear in print this summer. (The other three are on Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, and the idea of late capitalism.) The combination of being sick, and finishing those pieces, left me with time and energy for little more than resting in bed and reading. So that’s what I’ve been doing. Here is what I’ve been reading or re-reading: […]
A Time Traveller’s (Eco) Footprint
By Jez Strickley
“The inventor made the insecticide everlasting.” (Planet of Giants, 1964, Louis Marks)
Columbia University's renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs talks about the lessons he has learned from consulting with governments around the world, about how global problems, such as the war in Ukraine, will only be solved via efforts to understand the other side, never through force.
Are there alternative, less socially costly, ways to bring inflation down?
Evidence-based answers to the main (policy) questions concerning the return of high inflation
A specter is haunting the US—the specter of stagflation
Financial Times’ Martin Wolf (2022) is the latest influential voice sounding the alarm bell on ‘the threat of stagflation’ and calling for the Fed to drastically raise interest rates to bring inflation down to its target level. Published on May 24, Wolf’s diagnosis of where the stagflation in the US economy is coming from reflects current establishment opinion: nominal demand, fuelled by over-expansionary fiscal and monetary policies during the COVID-19 crisis, is exceeding US supply. To bring down inflation, these macroeconomic policy errors need to be corrected convincingly and as soon as possible. This is how Wolf puts it:
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I’m delighted to tell you that my new book ‘Days Like These: An Alternative Guide to the Year in 366 Poems’ is now available to pre-order from your local, friendly bookshop. It’s publishing in October, just before tea time. It contains a poem for every day of the year, each one inspired by an event…
Columbia University's renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs talks about the lessons he has learned from consulting with governments around the world, about how global problems, such as the war in Ukraine, will only be solved via efforts to understand the other side, never through force.
James M. Buchanan's defenders argue he was not racist because of his ties with the anti-apartheid economist W.H. Hutt, but this defense fails miserably
The great student of rhetoric Kenneth Burke described the output of his era’s “debunkers” in a manner that also captures the conduct of many libertarians who have rallied to the defense of Nobel Laureate James M. Buchanan over the past few years. "It would seem they are no longer seeking good arguments; rather they are seeking any arguments, if only there be enough of them to keep running through the headlines,” wrote Burke. “Are there no eagles among their utterances? Very well, let them be instead a swarm of mosquitoes.”
One swarm of mosquitos let loose by the sentries of the libertarian cause circles around the South African economist, William Harold Hutt. Buchanan’s acolytes are adamant that his support of tax-funded subsidies for segregated private schools in the midst of Virginia’s Massive Resistance to Brown v. Board of Education had nothing to do with a racist preference for the maintenance of separate schools.
Despite his opposition to South Africa's apartheid, Hutt embraced notions of black inferiority
During the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977 a ghostly figure was spotted by alarmed viewers in a BBC broadcast. The spectre appeared to be sitting beside the Queen in her carriage. The apparition's identity remains unknown, though some claim it is Scarfolk resident Herbert Empire.
Audiobook: Justice is an option
I've been immersed in monetary theory for several years. At one point I realised that money-as-we-know-it and markets are actually just two aspects of the same idea, and that the two evolve together. So saying, I've read a lot about money, its sociology, history, philosophy etc, but very little about markets.
This book is about modern financial markets more than money, but it does talk about monetary creation events such as quantitative easing, and the markets' need for various quantities of money. The title of the book is a pun, because the book is really about traded options, financial instruments that allow you to buy or sell assets at a known price in the future. Options provide a sort of insurance against the vicissitudes of the markets and can make doing business a bit more predictable.
The fundamental price of an option has 2 components:
An obituary for Axel Leijunhufvud (Sept 6, 1933 - May 5, 2022)
Axel Leijunhufvud’s sad passing on May 5th has rightly stimulated a round of tributes to a thinker of uncommon breadth. But there is perhaps reason to doubt how widely appreciated the diversity of his thinking really was. Leijunhufvud changed the colors of his economic reasoning in response to many strands of 20th-century discussion, repainting each one. He had an ample palette and his color mixes were always interesting – an artist of macroeconomics indeed. Never lacking confidence and blessed with understated charisma, he was a member of one of Sweden’s oldest aristocratic families. Lionhead is a literal translation of his surname. (Old Swedish noble names can be peculiar. For example, Oxstars and Swineheads still roam the land.)
Corporate responsibility needs to evolve if businesses are going to rebuild trust and provide real value for society.
The “Beige Book” adds anecdotal context to other data and analysis economists use. Researchers gave an inside look at how information for the report is gathered.
To order our latest book, sold to support the RSPCA, please visit our online store: https://dwas-store.sumup.link
Join actors, writers and production crew from the world of Doctor Who as they relate moving and hilarious stories about their own very special pets, including contributions from:
This is a piece I did for Crikey I’d forgotten I’d written and hadn’t put it up here. So now I have. The article was spotted by someone who has been exposing just how much damage opening up Congressional committee … Continue reading
As always, if you find value in this work I do, please consider helping me keep it sustainable by joining my weekly newsletter, Sparky’s List! You can get it in your inbox or read it on Patreon, the content is the same.
The world could vaccinate everyone who wants be vaccinated, but hasn’t. Vaccine apartheid tells us something about how the world is (or isn’t) responding to the climate crisis, too: But […]
In this discussion, Peyton Bowman and I discuss my term ‘fast-foodification’. I coined the word trying to describe modern politics. The techniques used by politicians and their professional enablers are optimised to attract votes in the same way that McDonalds and … Continue reading
Abbott speaking at the NRA Convention in Houston today, just days after the school shooting, inspired me to draw this.VOTE BETO, Texas!