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Created
Tue, 26/03/2024 - 18:36
Money Can’t Buy Anything That Matters

I’ve written, prescriptively, that money shouldn’t buy anything that matters: not healthcare or education, for example.

Anything we can do, we can afford

But at the top level money can’t buy anything you couldn’t do anyway. Anything we can’t do, we can only buy from others. The Britian of the thirties was still, despite all its problems, a great industrial power. They could do most things, and it was ridiculous to pretend they didn’t have the money. They could build ships and buildings and refine medicines and so on.

There we some things they couldn’t do: they couldn’t produce as much food as they wanted: they bad to buy that from others. But since other people wanted what they could do, they would accept British pounds.

And there were things no one could do, and money wouldn’t buy those things: go to the moon, for example.

Created
Tue, 26/03/2024 - 15:30
TNR’s Michael Tomasky with the word: I’m going to tell you something that I’m pretty sure you don’t know—and that you probably won’t even believe. Ready? Real wages are now growing in the United States at a pace faster than the spike in the cost of living since the pandemic. More than that: For the first time in decades, wage growth is consistently stronger in the middle and at the bottom than at the top. See, I told you that you wouldn’t believe it. But it’s right there in a recent study by David Autor, Arindrajit Dube, and Annie McGrew, three well-known economists. Dube just wrote up the results at Project Syndicate, emphasizing: “Importantly, the real wages of the middle quintile are not only higher today than they were before the pandemic, but slightly higher than we would expect based on 2015-19 trends.
Created
Tue, 26/03/2024 - 09:00
Here’s another excellent insight about Trump’s seemingly inexplicable appeal by Samuel Earle in the NY Times: In recent months, Donald Trump has been trying out a new routine. At rallies and town halls across the country, he compares himself to Al Capone. “He was seriously tough, right?” Mr. Trump told a rally in Iowa in October, in an early rendition of the act. But “he was only indicted one time; I’ve been indicted four times.” (Capone was, in fact, indicted at least six times.) The implication is not just that Mr. Trump is being unfairly persecuted but also that he is four times as tough as Capone. “If you looked at him in the wrong way,” Mr. Trump explained, “he blew your brains out.” Mr. Trump’s eagerness to invoke Capone reflects an important shift in the image he wants to project to the world. In 2016, Mr. Trump played the reality TV star and businessman who would shake up politics, shock and entertain. In 2020, Mr. Trump was the strongman, desperately trying to hold on to power by whatever means possible. In 2024, Mr.
Created
Tue, 26/03/2024 - 08:30

Cochav Elkayam-Levy, the Israeli lawyer at the center of the campaign accusing Hamas of systematic sexual violence on October 7, now stands accused by Israeli media of scamming donors and spreading misinformation. The allegations appeared just days after Elkayam-Levy received the prestigious Israel Prize. As the founder of the so-called Civil Commission on October 7th Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children, Israel lawyer Cochav Elkayam Levy has been a go-to source for Western media organizations pushing the narrative that […]

The post Israeli propagandist behind Hamas ‘mass rape’ narrative exposed as grifter, fraud first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post Israeli propagandist behind Hamas ‘mass rape’ narrative exposed as grifter, fraud appeared first on The Grayzone.

Created
Tue, 26/03/2024 - 08:30
Two of Trump’s worst nightmares are happening right now, he’s broke and people are laughing at him. It’s glorious! I told people I enjoyed 24 hours of knowing Donald’s squirming. In this clip you can see how Eric Trump is personally experiencing his Dad’s humiliation at the hands of bankers and bond companies.Eric Trump Sunday interview on Fox News, host Maria Bartiromo  “When I came to them saying, ‘Hey, can I get a 1/2 billion dollar bond?’ Maria they were laughing!” -Eric Trump to Maria Bartiromo on Fox 3-24-2024 It’s interesting that Eric was doing the calling, and they laughed in his face. Why not Daddy? Because they know Donald always get revenge against people who laugh at him and don’t do what he wants. On Monday we learned Trump got the bond amount reduced to $175 million and a Double Secret Special Extension that kicks the can down the road 10 days.
Created
Tue, 26/03/2024 - 07:38

I have this friend. A mountain of unexpected medical debt buried his family at the start of last year. At the same time, the closing of his business stuck him with six figures of personal debt. Liquidating a retirement account and maxing out credit cards bought him short-term breathing room. Mostly, though, it added interest […]

The post The Valley of Hidden Sorrows appeared first on Zeldman on Web and Interaction Design.

Created
Tue, 26/03/2024 - 07:30
Rubio, desperate for the VP nod, attempts a full Pence It wasn’t pretty: Can Trump forgive him for this? Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who once suggested the size of Donald Trump’s hands indicated smaller-than-average reproductive anatomy when he and the future president both ran for president eight years ago, has indicated a willingness to serve as Mr Trump’s vice president should the 45th president succeed in becoming the 47th after the November presidential election. During one March 2016 primary debate, Mr Rubio responded to Mr Trump calling him “little Marco” by suggesting that Mr Trump’s genitals were undersized by remarking on the size of the New Yorker’s hands. “And you know what they say about guys with small hands,” said Mr Rubio, who was then a sitting senator while Mr Trump was merely a real estate developer turned reality television host. The future president defended his manhood shortly thereafter, falsely claiming that no one had ever commented on his hand size before even though the now-defunct Spy magazine had routinely referred to him as a “short-fingered vulgarian”.
Created
Tue, 26/03/2024 - 06:00

In my new book Animals and Capital, I follow through the implications of Marx’s value theory for thinking about capitalist animal agriculture. One important argument of the book is that animal labour power can be understood from the perspective of value, and this provides a fresh way to look at the factory farm.

The post What is the Factory Farm? Notes from Animals and Capital appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).

Created
Tue, 26/03/2024 - 06:00
Jonathan Chait with an elegant analysis of what Trump’s doing with his valoriztion of the insurrectionists: “Joe Biden’s team has elevated the ‘threat to democracy’ posed by Trump and his movement to a place of prominence in its appeals to voters,” complained National Review’s Noah Rothman, who has written elsewhere that Trump is no more a threat to democracy than Biden. “Making the cause of the January 6 rioters into a central feature of Trump’s campaign plays directly into Biden’s hands.” This is the extent of the Republican concern: Trump is alienating swing voters who might be receptive to messages about high grocery prices but respond nervously to blood-soaked vows to redeem his martyrs and purify the fatherland. But there is a perfectly cogent reason why Trump continues to press his most extreme demands, even at the cost of repulsing potential voters. He is no longer willing to accept the alliance of convenience with reluctant partners that held traditional Republicans like Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and Reince Priebus by his side during his first term.