Reading

Created
Thu, 07/09/2023 - 18:59

‘You see all these kitchen sink dramas with beautiful kitchens; nothing out of place, no dirty pans,’ said the woman shown sat on screen in a small and untidy kitchen, ‘well, people’s kitchens aren’t like that.’ In spring 1974, BBC One broadcast The Family. In the new documentary series, the Wilkins family from Reading — […]

Created
Thu, 07/09/2023 - 18:00
Ivan Yotzov, Philip Bunn, Nicholas Bloom, Paul Mizen and Gregory Thwaites Inflation in 2023 remains elevated across many advanced economies. Existing studies have considered the contribution of profits to persistently high inflation in the US, euro area and UK. To add to this debate, we recently asked firms in the Decision Maker Panel about their … Continue reading Profit margins and firm price growth: evidence from the Decision Maker Panel
Created
Thu, 07/09/2023 - 16:29

Just laid my hands on the first copy of TECHNOFEUDALISM – What killed capitalism. Good feeling. There is no substitute for physicality. Below, I copy the Preface and Table of Contents to offer you a whiff of the argument and style. I believe it will be in UK bookshops at the end of the month. […]

The post Technofeudalism has just arrived… Read the Preface here appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Created
Thu, 07/09/2023 - 09:30
You won’t believe the charge I wonder how many thousands of Americans have committed this crime: Special counsel David Weiss intends to seek an indictment against President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, relating to gun charges by the end of the month, the Justice Department said Wednesday. Hunter Biden had previously reached a deal involving a felony gun possession charge that would have allowed him to avoid prosecution if he met certain conditions over a 24 month period. However, after his plea deal to resolve two tax charges fell apart in court, the future of the gun deal has been in limbo. “The Speedy Trial Act requires that the Government obtain the return of an indictment by a grand jury by Friday, September 29, 2023, at the earliest. The Government intends to seek the return of an indictment in this case before that date,” the special counsel’s office said in a court filing. Prosecutors did not say how many charges would be brought. Hunter Biden’s gun-related legal troubles relate to a firearm he purchased in October 2018.
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Thu, 07/09/2023 - 08:00
I find that the Bulwark’s JV Last has a dark view of current events that often fits my mood even if I’m actually quite a bit more optimistic in general. (See my earlier posts today exhorting everyone to chill a bit about Biden’s chances.) But there are days that I ponder our situation and feel the blackness descending and I appreciate Last’s analytical prowess as he tries to assess just what the hell is happening here. He doesn’t come to any firm conclusions and neither do it but it’s important to at least try to figure it out. Anyway, here’s today’s dark missive: 1. Decadence We’re going to keep doing this and I’m sorry. Here are some tidbits from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal poll: What? Trump has more of a record of “accomplishment” in office than Biden? I would pay a lot of money to sit down with that 51 percent of respondents and ask them to tell me five things Trump accomplished in office. I’d even spot them the first four: A tax cut; the appointment of three SCOTUS judges; the killing of Qasem Soleimani; Operation Warp Speed.
Created
Thu, 07/09/2023 - 07:54

Once denounced by Zelensky as a “criminal,” gun runner Serhiy Pashinksy has become the top private supplier of arms to Ukraine. Eyewitness testimony has fingered Pashinsky as the architect of a bloody false flag operation which propelled the 2014 Maidan coup and plunged the country into civil war. Years before emerging as Kiev’s top private weapons trafficker, ex-legislator Serhiy Pashinsky played a key role in the 2014 US-backed coup which toppled Ukraine’s democratically-elected president and set the stage for a […]

The post Ukraine’s ‘biggest arms supplier’ orchestrated 2014 Maidan massacre, witnesses say first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post Ukraine’s ‘biggest arms supplier’ orchestrated 2014 Maidan massacre, witnesses say appeared first on The Grayzone.

Created
Thu, 07/09/2023 - 06:30
I just love this story so much: In August 2022, James O’Keefe needed to get to Maine for a sailing trip. Rather than take a commercial flight for roughly $200, the conservative undercover-video activistdirected his employees to book a $12,000 helicopter flight direct from New York to the seaside town of Southwest Harbor, using funds donated to Project Veritas, the nonprofit he founded, according to a draft of a private internal audit conducted by an independent law firm. When bad weather forced the helicopter to make an unscheduled landing in Portland, O’Keefe booked a $1,400 black car for the three-hour drive from the helipad to the sailboat. O’Keefe justified the expenses by saying that he had a meeting near the dock, the audit stated. Two Project Veritas staffers described the person he met with to The Washington Post as a low-level donor.
Created
Thu, 07/09/2023 - 05:00
Maybe saying the word “woke” every other word wasn’t the big winner Ron and Casey thought it was Politico reports: Of the 50 donors who gave at least $160,000 in the years leading up to his 2022 reelection campaign, only 16 — less than a third — provided funds to the super PAC Never Back Down, which can receive unlimited contributions, through the end of June. Eight other major donors gave directly to his presidential campaign but not the super PAC. The top 50 list includes five donors who are now financially supporting rival presidential candidates. And of those who are giving money to the DeSantis campaign or his super PAC, five are splitting their funds with other candidates. The inability of DeSantis to convert more of his gubernatorial donors into presidential ones is emblematic of a larger shortcoming of his current campaign. And it presents particular problems for the governor precisely because his operation has leaned so heavily on the super PAC to perform basic campaign functions.
Created
Thu, 07/09/2023 - 04:58
It is time for us to use the words Occupation, Illegality and Apartheid. We are applying these words to an occupying power truculent and implacable in its determination its occupation will never end, committed to a creeping annexation to deliver it a permanent hold over Palestinian land and Palestinian people. … Twenty years ago it Continue reading »
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Thu, 07/09/2023 - 04:57
The native forest logging industry is a fundamental danger to Australia’s natural environment and an utter disaster for climate change policy. It is reported that the downward trend of Australia’s greenhouse emissions has ended. Instead, they have begun to slightly increase. Western Australia and Victoria have announced an end to native logging by the end Continue reading »
Created
Thu, 07/09/2023 - 04:55
Once an early experiment in democracy, Australia has declined into a quagmire of unrepresentative governments at state and federal levels. Power games are played obsessively by most members of a narrowly-recruited and self-serving political class whose only interest seems to be staying in power. Politics is not a vocation for these leeches on the Australian Continue reading »
Created
Thu, 07/09/2023 - 04:54
The Australian Government’s current Multicultural Framework Review is looking at ways for government and the community to work together to support a cohesive multicultural society and advance a vibrant and prosperous future for all Australians. The Review coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Whitlam Government’s 1973 report ‘A Multi-cultural Society for the Future’, which Continue reading »