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Is it good for your wallet? A climate bill in disguise? Landmark action or nothingburger? Economic experts assess the Democrats’ legislative victory for the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

Now that Democrats have finally passed their much-touted legislation, key experts go beyond the hype to weigh in on how the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will likely impact your wallet in the short and long term, what it means to climate change, and what more is required to improve the lives of Americans and save the planet. Hint: the bill may not be all it's cracked up to be -- especially when it comes to curbing inflation.

On Climate, a Meaningful Small Step: Servaas Storm, Senior Lecturer of Economics, Delft University of Technology

Between dodging viruses and pondering fascism and climate disasters, I have been re-reading a truly uplifting book which I hadn't visited for many years. It's the masterpiece of the French historian Marc Bloch, Feudal Society, first published in 1940. I have a 2-volume paperback of the English translation, which I bought as a student for the terrifying price of 3 dollars and 60 cents.

It's social history or historical sociology, whichever you like. Bloch set himself the austere task of anatomizing a whole society, tracing the basic relationships that made it a distinct social formation. But it is also full-blooded history, concerned with the conditions that brought this society into being, its attitudes, its divisions, its conflicts, its laws; with how it survived in western Europe for five hundred years or so, and how it changed.

In late 2017, the European Commission asked us to research innovation in the digital economy. Our earlier work, including Virtual Competition, raised the concern of policymakers around the world as we uncovered several significant risks of the digital economy including algorithmic collusion. But on innovation, we, like many others, were optimistic and trusted in the market’s ability to deliver. As we dug into the data over the next few years, however, we found multiple fallacies about innovation in the digital economy. Our counterintuitive findings were unsettling.

As always, if you find value in this work I do, please consider helping me keep it sustainable by joining my weekly newsletter, Sparky’s List! You can get it in your inbox or read it on Patreon, the content is the same.

We have been working on a song idea that we came up with during a live-stream songwriting session.

How Republicans Could Steal The Next Presidential Election

The latest Republican plot to sabotage our elections could remove American voters from the process of selecting their president. 

You heard that right. A case headed to the Supreme Court could let Republican controlled state legislatures overrule the will of the people and pick the next president without you.

This all hinges on a radical idea called the “independent state legislature theory.” It’s at the heart of a case the Supreme Court will decide called Moore v. Harper.

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We've been doing live streams of our songwriting sessions from our studio on our Twitch channel. We just turn on the camera and try out ideas and see where they take us.

Here is a clip from one of those sessions we posted to our YouTube Channel.

Rumble Fish Style (Live Stream Clip)

One of the things I wanted to try was something that sounded like the soundtrack for the 1983 movie Rumble Fish.

In memory of Lance Taylor

The fast-growing esports industry boosts economies as well as top players.

Previously we had posted about a song idea that we came up with during a live stream songwriting session.