Reading

Created
Wed, 16/10/2024 - 23:00

Thanks for sharing your work, Glenn. It definitely engaged my imagination. However, there were a few instances where I found it hard to parse. Here are my notes:

“I wanna savage your spinal remains.”

Unless you’re one of those bone-crushing vultures, this doesn’t really make much sense for a character’s motivation. Consider revising.

“She walked out with empty arms. Machine gun in her hand. She is good, and she is bad. No one understands”

I appreciate that you’re trying to tackle the essential duality of human nature here, along with the existential crisis perpetuated by our inability to ever truly perceive the interior mental states of those around us, but how can her arms be empty if she’s got a machine gun in her hand? I don’t get it.

“We walk the streets at night. We go where eagles dare.”

Strong start here. Solid scene-setting and use of metaphor. But I’ll be honest, this part kind of lost me:

“The omelet of disease. Awaits your noontime meal. Her mouth of germicide. Seducing all your glands.”

Created
Wed, 16/10/2024 - 21:30

At 11 am on 17 March 2022, seafarers aboard vessels operated by P&O Ferries were told to attend a pre-recorded Zoom meeting. In the video, a besuited executive of the company announced: ‘I am sorry to inform you that your employment is terminated with immediate effect . . . your final day of employment is today.’ With that, the […]

Created
Wed, 16/10/2024 - 17:48
It’s Wednesday and as usual I am writing about a few issues rather than providing a detailed analysis of a specific issue. Today, I publish the video of Australian launch of our new book – Modern Monetary Theory: Bill and Warren’s Excellent Adventure. I also comment on the current situation in the Middle East and…
Created
Wed, 16/10/2024 - 11:30
Believe them. They carry out their agenda when they get the power to do it: Trump talks a lot about the 1890s as America’s golden era. That’s when he thinks America was great. Child labor was a big part of that: Court documents unsealed in the Western District of Arkansas reveal accusations of child labor at Tyson processing plants, which have since prompted searches by the U.S. Department of Labor. Applications for inspection warrants were filed in September 2024 for Tyson Foods Rogers and Tyson Foods Green Forest. The applications, which included narratives from an investigator at the Houston District Office for the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor, claim that there is reason to believe minors are employed in violation of labor laws at the Tyson locations in Rogers and Green Forest. The warrants were seeking records relating to the employment of minors, and the searches were meant to gather records relating to employees for Tyson Foods or affiliates and contractors of Tyson Foods, according to the applications.
Created
Wed, 16/10/2024 - 10:30

I’m a well-informed Hobbit—a Boffin from Overhill, thank you very much—who is in a kerfuffle about whom to throw my Hobbit-sized support behind. For some, the choice is clear, but for a little guy like me, I’m feeling awfully torn up, like a tear-and-share cheese bread during Winter Solstice! I simply can’t seem to decide between the Dark Lord determined to return to power and stay there until shadows drown all of Arda, or the Elf Galadriel, who seems to be great and exceedingly normal, but I just wish I knew more about her.

I’ve tried my best to keep up with current events, but my day-to-day life is quite calamitous. Between dancing, eating until I can barely wobble home, the pestilence that wiped out my crop of pumpkins, and more dancing, I barely have the energy to host Elevensies let alone engage in public discourse! I know I need to listen, especially since the Shire could determine the future of Middle-earth. I’m here now, trying to catch up on the news before making this apparently earth-shattering decision.

But for these candidates to win my favor, I have to be clear that my concerns as a Hobbit center around one thing: pain at the pipe.

Created
Wed, 16/10/2024 - 09:00
This paper explores the formation of households' wage and inflation expectations using a common dataset and framework, documenting a number of stylised facts. We find that households tend to form wage and inflation expectations somewhat differently. Households associate higher wages growth with good economic outcomes, but higher inflation with worse economic outcomes. Wages expectations also tend to be somewhat more forward looking, while inflation expectations are more backward looking, especially for lower income households, and place a disproportionate weight on past fuel prices. These findings paint a picture of households having a somewhat 'supply-side' view of inflation, where shocks that push up inflation also weaken the economy, but a more 'demand-side' view of wages, where shocks that push up wages also strengthen the economy, which may make communication of monetary policy and the outlook more challenging.
Created
Wed, 16/10/2024 - 09:00
You won’t be surprised that the latest head of the NRA is a charter member: Douglas Hamlin, who was appointed to lead the NRA this summer in the wake of a long-running corruption scandal at the gun rights group, was involved decades ago in the sadistic killing of a fraternity house cat named BK, according to several local media reports at the time. Hamlin pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty brought against him and four of his fraternity brothers in 1980, when he was an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. The charge was brought against Hamlin under a local Ann Arbor ordinance. All five members of Alpha Delta Phi were later expelled from the fraternity. The details of the case, described in local media reports at the time, are gruesome. The house cat was captured, its paws were cut off, and was then strung up and set on fire. The killing, which occurred in December 1979, was allegedly prompted by anger that the cat was not using its litterbox. The case caused such a furore locally that some students and animal rights activists wore buttons and armbands in memory of BK.