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Right now we have central banks attempting to control inflation by crushing wages. But wage-push demand isn’t the primary driver of inflation, it is corporate profit taking (increasing prices much faster than their costs) and some genuine supply bottlenecks.

This cannot be fixed by central banks except by smashing ordinary people flat, and in certain senses not even then, since it will lead to long term maldistribution of resources which will lead to real economic problems in the future: problems not based on distribution or finance, but on lack of physical ability to create what we need.

If we want to fix this we have to make it so that those who control economic decision making can only do well if the population as a whole does well. That means politicians who want to help the population (not 90% of European or American pols) and corporate leaders who need the population to do well.

May Rostom On average, parental contributions help children buy homes four years earlier than those without them. Out of every 100 new homeowners below the age of 30, 16 will have had help from ‘the Bank of Mum and Dad’, or Bomad for short. That rises to one in four new homeowners under the age … Continue reading Bomadland: How the Bank of Mum and Dad helps kids buy homes →

Child scabs wanted!

Don't you see the REAL dangers?

As is usual with trends of all kinds, some recent electoral successes for far-right parties in Europe have been extrapolated into a narrative in which the rise of the far-right is just about unstoppable. That narrative took a blow with the recent Spanish elections in which the far-right Vox party performed poorly and its coalition […]

The Reserve Bank of Australia has published the dates for the 2024 meetings of the Reserve Bank Board, and the related announcements and publications.

'This is Just Practice' reads the sub-title of Marisa Holmes' book Organizing Occupy Wall Street, which is the latest addition to the Alternatives and Futures: Cultures, Practices, Activism and Utopias series. The book reverberates with revolutionary intent: a threat and a promise.

The post A Human Geography of the Space of The Square appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).

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This is from Axios the font of all beltway CW. It’s about time: Republicans are hammering “Joe Biden’s America” as a land of rising violent crime, surging immigration and out of control inflation, but there’s just one problem: the numbers are starting to move in the opposite direction. The big picture: With 2024 around the corner, the U.S. is making measurable progress in the areas where Biden has been most vulnerable to GOP attacks. Violent crime surged in U.S. cities during the pandemic and ranked as a top concern for voters in the 2022 midterms. Republicans slammed Biden and Democratic leaders for rising crime rates, and many Democrats started embracing a more centrist approach to policing. Homicides were down 9% in the first half of this year over the same period last year, according to a study of 37 major cities from the Council on Criminal Justice. State of play: Violent crime rates are generally down across the board, thought they’re still higher than 2019 levels.

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It’s even worse than we knew Rolling Stone catches up with more Jason Aldean racism: JUST WHEN YOU thought there couldn’t possibly be anymore dog whistles embedded in the Jason Aldean “Try That in a Small Town” saga, an intrepid, sharp-eyed TikTok user has potentially picked out one more. Amazingly, this incident doesn’t involve the song itself, or even its controversial video — part of which was reportedly filmed outside a courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, the site of a 1933 lynching (and features a surprising amount of footage from Canada). Rather, it involves a promotional video shared on TikTok. It’s a largely innocuous lyric video with a newspaper theme, but as TikTok user Danny Collins discovered, there’s an actual old newspaper clipping featured in the video — and it’s tied to a Jim Crow-era story about a writer who was harassed for fighting segregation and white supremacy.  @dannyfcollins Thank you to my followers who tag me. All I’m saying is lets get real. To everyone supporting Jason Aldean what else do you need to see or hear? Accept accountability and do better.

Fresh from a recent trip to Ukraine, veteran anti-war activist Medea Benjamin speaks on the Biden administration’s controversial move to send cluster munitions to the country and more in this revealing interview with Alan Macleod.

The post Biden’s Desperation and the Human Cost of Cluster Munitions in Ukraine, with Medea Benjamin appeared first on MintPress News.

A new analysis shows the most widely cited happiness studies relied on poor research methods.

The post Bummer: Popular Happiness Strategies Are a Bust appeared first on Nautilus.

Annie Lowrey in the Atlantic had an interesting take on why so many people are unhappy in this booming economy: Dr. Dre on the radio, The Matrix on the big screen, The Sopranos on TV: The year 1999 was wonderful for many reasons, including economic ones. That year, the median household income rose to a record level, a watermark that held for nearly two decades. (The average American family was poorer when Donald Trump was running for office than when Bill Clinton left office.) Wages were growing across the board—all kinds of workers were getting consistent raises. Productivity growth was strong. Wealth inequality was holding steady and far lower than it is today. The poverty rate hit its lowest point in years. I could go on and on with the hard statistics: The share of workers with a college degree was climbing. The homeownership rate was booming. The stock market, booming. Consumer confidence was the highest it has ever been. The share of people employed was the highest it has ever been. Investor optimism was the highest it has ever been.

During this live event, the Lever team and paid subscribers discussed the troubling legacy of SCOTUS Chief Justice John Roberts.

Former Australian Prime Minister (yep, really) Scotty from marketing, has tweeted out to Twitter owner Elon Musk to ask him to give him a call so they can talk about branding and employment opportunities. ”Elon is a bloke with a... Read More ›

In the third part of a three-year special investigation, Byline Times details the trauma of a man controlled for 10 years by Martin Branning – the pseudonym of TV presenter Dan Wootton

If Trump wins the WH again, get ready to go backwards Axios reports: A reelected Donald Trump could pull several levers to try and pare back federal policies aimed at speeding the transition to electric vehicles. Why it matters: EVs are becoming more mainstream, but they’re still a small share of U.S. car sales, and President Joe Biden has been keen to juice deployment. Catch up fast: Trump, the GOP frontrunner, released a video late last week that, among other things, bashed EV costs. He vowed to reverse what he called a “ridiculous Green New Deal crusade.” Trump’s seeking auto workers’ votes in competitive states like Michigan, at a time when the United Auto Workers leadership is skittish about EVs. The big picture: It’s hard to see the votes for outright repealing the Democrats’ climate law or the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill, even if Republicans have both chambers of Congress after 2024. Yes, but: Trump would hardly be powerless. Zoom in: His campaign released a list of proposals alongside the video.

Recently, an Indiana Moms for Liberty chapter included—and attributed—a quote from Adolf Hitler in their...

What do the governments of other US allies, including Hungary, Norway, the Philippines, and the former puppet government of Afghanistan, possess that Australian governments do not? The answer is a conception of genuine sovereignty, and obligations to transparency that are foreign to Australian governments, particularly the incumbent Albanese government. In November 2011, Prime Minister Julia Continue reading »

Espionage, surveillance and monitoring in a society require guile, judiciousness, and care. Secrecy matters. Inserted agents assume roles for years as friends even as they are purloining your secrets. They are the charming thespians of treachery. Then come those who work in plain sight, drawing salaries from foreign powers, yet tolerated for the services they Continue reading »