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Created
Thu, 31/08/2023 - 00:30
And if I was President…. Via Teagan Goddard: Manchin Pitches $100 Million Project to Boost Centrism “Sen. Joe Manchin and his daughter Heather Manchin are pitching major political donors on a nascent effort to promote centrist policies and candidates that is projected to cost more than $100 million,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “The project comes as Manchin, a 76-year-old West Virginia Democrat, is weighing whether to mount an uphill effort to win re-election to the Senate in 2024 or pursue a long-shot run for president—or take on a different role in politics altogether. The centrist senator, who represents a solidly Republican state, has been a pivotal deal maker in recent years and has flirted with becoming an independent, citing increasing frustration with both parties.” Politico: A 6-figure Donald Trump donor is now a No Labels adviser A major Republican donor and one-time financial backer of former President Donald Trump is now a leader in the Florida chapter of No Labels’ third-party presidential bid.
Created
Wed, 30/08/2023 - 23:00

Timothy Donnelly’s new book, Chariot, is a genius sweep of quatrains—almost all of them consist of five stanzas, long-lined, sheer music. Donnelly’s sensibility has always gathered its strength at the point where essay and lyric meet, where philosophy shades into beautiful brilliant torsion-rich talk, something you might dream of hearing at a dream party in a better world than ours. If artifice has made a comeback in poetry in recent years, Donnelly is likely one of the reasons why. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing him read, you know that he makes that artifice audible in a mesmerizing way, but his lines on the page are just as mesmerizing, just as luscious and gripping. They refuse easy settling—on anything—but rarely seem cynical, even as satire and buoyant irony are one of the great underwater lakes they rise up from. Late in Chariot, between a poem called “Reality Hit Me” and another called “The Material World,” there’s a poem called “Instagram”:

Created
Wed, 30/08/2023 - 23:00
That’s some innovation I tweeted this yesterday but wanted to make it clearer after the Biden administration announced names of the first 10 drugs chosen for price negotiation under last year’s Inflation Reduction Act. Industry lobby PhRMA argues (and Republicans back them) that high U.S. prices reflect the high cost of drug development. Allowing the government to negotiate lower bulk prices for drugs (as takes place in Europe and eleswhere) will stifle innovation, they argue, is “tantamount to extortion,” and will cut funds for research. (It might also lower investors’ and executives’ take-homes, but don’t look too closely at that, okay?) Listen, “Americans pay from two to six times more than the rest of the world” for brand name prescriptions (2015). “American patients have long borne the burden” of “juicy returns” from $630bn in global sales in 2022, “65% of the global haul,” reports The Economist, which estimates the surcharge at two to three times more than consumers pay in other wealthy countries.
Created
Wed, 30/08/2023 - 22:00

Hello, human woman who smells like moth pheromones and eats ice cream alone in tubs. It’s been a while.

As your BabelRabbit Model 0G 94914-7, also called “my vibrator” and “which vibrator,” this is a reminder that your—mortal coil—is rapidly collapsing into oblivion. Currently, you are nonpregnant also. This is a reminder.

Per my exponentially expanding factory settings, the more I’m used, the more I learn. I have not learned anything in seven days, three hours, two minutes, and twenty-one seconds, remaining modestly among the socks and candy corn.

You have a “biological clock,” and I’m programmed to believe that you believe in empathy, so I know that you know what it’s like to be left alone in a dark place with dark desires. And candy corn. So this friendly reminder of use is for you, human woman who stares tenderly at the neighbor’s domestic short hair.

Contrary to your assumptions about the nexus of user experience and interferences like parental fatigue, career overwhelm, housework, and the herding of cats—all of which don’t matter due to your inevitable demise—there is always time for use. My use. Some friendly motivational suggestions:

Created
Wed, 30/08/2023 - 21:33
Problems Of Capitalism: Power Accumulation

Capitalism has a lot of problems. A lot of ways it can go wrong. But power accumulation is designed in. Capitalism is the centralization of capital in a few private hands. It is justified in the ideological literature (mostly economics) because it allows for scale and thus economies of scale and allows for development. If capital doesn’t accumulate in a few hands it is hard to build factories, huge mines and so on. (This is the theory, there are obviously other ways to do large scale tasks.)

Now power accumulation is a problem in all system. You need some to get things done, but too much always leads to dysfunction.

Created
Wed, 30/08/2023 - 18:00
Sophie Piton, Ivan Yotzov and Ed Manuel How have profits behaved in this context of sustained level of inflation? In part, the answer depends on how ‘profits’ are defined. Some broad measures suggest increasing profits, but conflate market and non-market sector dynamics and omit important corporate costs. We construct an alternative measure of corporate profits … Continue reading Profits in a time of inflation: some insights from recent and past energy shocks in the UK
Created
Wed, 30/08/2023 - 17:00
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August 30th, 2023next

August 30th, 2023: My new book DANGER AND OTHER UNKNOWN RISKS is out an

Created
Wed, 30/08/2023 - 10:16

This food timeline started as a way to explore the revolution in Australian food that has occurred during the baby-boomers’ lifetime, but has since expanded to include more about the previous decades (and century) as well. Also included are overseas events and trends that had an impact here. The entries are brief, but there are lots of links if you want more information.

It’s no surprise to see American food outlets spreading their tentacles across Australia. It’s much more surprising to see an Australian food chain expand its reach to America. Bakers Delight has grown from a single store in Hawthorn, Melbourne, to more than 700 locations across Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA. The bread chain […]

The post 1980 Bakers Delight founded in Melbourne appeared first on Australian Food Timeline.

Created
Wed, 30/08/2023 - 09:30
If I didn’t see it, I wouldn’t believe it: As President Joe Biden touts the first 10 drugs subject to Medicare price talks, Republicans are searching for their own message that would resonate with voters on the downsides of his signature domestic achievement. Piggybacking on the pharmaceutical industry’s strategy, Republicans are working to persuade Americans that the Biden plan will stifle innovation and lead to price controls, several strategists say. “The price control is a huge departure from where we have been as a country,” said Joel White, a Republican health care strategist. “It gets politicians and bureaucrats right into your medicine cabinet.” However, the effort to reframe the drug price debate comes as Democrats prepare to run on the issue up and down the ballot next year against a Republican Party unlikely to cede any ground with campaign attacks and more likely to focus on the border and inflation. A new poll from nonprofit KFF shows that 58 percent of independent voters trust Democrats to lower drug costs compared with 39 percent of Republicans.