Reading

Created
Tue, 10/01/2023 - 05:36

The advent of military Keynesianism is a warning against complacency about the moral superiority of the West in defending Ukrainian democracy.

The war in Ukraine features in our consciousness as resistance to invasion, with the West playing a leading part in supplying military hardware and imposing sanctions on Russia, consequently breaking down international free trade, regulating international payments, and boosting food and energy price inflation. But the war is also changing us with the emergence of a new role for the state in the countries supporting Ukraine’s resistance.

Created
Tue, 10/01/2023 - 05:21
from Dean Baker The New York Times had a major article reporting on how many people in South Korea, Hong Kong, and Japan are being forced to work well into their seventies because they lack sufficient income to retire. The piece presents this as a problem of aging societies, which will soon hit the United States and […]
Created
Tue, 10/01/2023 - 05:21
Banking is an ongoing area of controversy in popular discussion of economics and finance. What sets it apart from other areas of economic controversy is that it is not seen as contentious by the mainstream. This has meant that arguments are largely done at the fringes, and generally ignored by conventional economists. I see two main drivers of the difficulties in dealing with the subject: ideology and theoretical intractability.

Editorial note: this article is meant to be an introductory section of a chapter on banking in economic theory. I am going to make a bunch of wild assertions that are supposed to be dealt with later in the chapter. I expect that I will have follow up articles filling in details later....
Bond Economics
Created
Tue, 10/01/2023 - 05:06
"Utility," derived from Bentham and Mills' Utilitarianism, is a fancy word that economists use to mean satisfaction, which is the contemporary term for 18 c. Utilitarian "happiness" that was inspired by Greek: εὐδαιμονία eudaimonía)," itself derived from Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics. The Greek term eudaimonía is also translated as "welfare," another term in use in economics. Literally, it means "good spirits." This could be thought of as wellbeing.

But what is happiness? Is it just economic satisfaction, or chiefly economic satisfaction, which is the way economists generally use it? According to the world's wisdom traditions, happiness in the highest sense is associated historically with being at peace, which is a considered "spiritual" rather than physical in the sense that happiness is not equatable with physical pleasure or material satisfaction.
Created
Tue, 10/01/2023 - 05:00

Friends, administrative coordinators, benefits-eligible staff: lend me your ears.

There comes a time in every hero’s journey when they must face their worst fear. I sought an office job, and the gods granted my wish. But this wish came with a cursed stipulation. My new employer cannot see how they have crushed my dreams of glory. Still, I must soldier on; I cannot keep myself alive whilst maintaining my dignity, and I cannot resist the call. If I want to keep this perfectly fine, well-paying job in administration, I must confront my worst enemy, my prophesized foe—the greatest of all evils.

I must write the department newsletter.

When I graduated, I swore to myself upon the grave of my degree that I would never fall into the clutches of marketing or editing. My peers each donated their youth to the beast, as they found work only in social media management and copywriting. Somehow, though, I evaded it. I had worked in libraries for years, narrowly avoiding the fate my peers undertook—by scanning returned books and answering reference questions.

Created
Tue, 10/01/2023 - 04:57
The US-Australia Force Posture Agreement has opened the gate for the US to set up Australia as a launching pad for its next war against China. The Albanese government must invoke Article XXI to terminate it and reclaim sovereignty. When it comes to military activities or agreements between Australia and the United States, the ANZUS Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 10/01/2023 - 04:56
State and territory first ministers are again pressing national cabinet to consider health care reform as its top priority at the first meeting for 2023. We have heard this song before. The first so-called national cabinet after the election of the Albanese government considered health care reform, and asked first secretaries to carry out a Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 10/01/2023 - 04:55
The farce occurring in the US House of Representatives, where a small group of far-right Republicans are seeking to veto the overwhelming choice of their colleagues for the party’s congressional leadership, may well be resolved by the weekend in the traditional American parliamentary way, with bribes, deals, committee placements and stiff-arming. It is not the Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 10/01/2023 - 04:54
Treasury’s December 2022 Population Statement has received more media attention than any of its previous statements. This is predominantly due to Treasurer Jim Chalmers promoting the statement extensively in contrast to his predecessor who largely treated these statements as business as usual. Chalmers is reported to have said “the news that Australia’s population would be Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 10/01/2023 - 04:54
Anzac Parade in Canberra is Australia’s major ceremonial avenue, a grand boulevard commemorating (heroic) service and sacrifice. Yet at least one of its monuments represents war crimes, racism, torture and murder. Few nations are as strident about their military history as Australia. There is no more admired symbol in our national psyche than that of Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 10/01/2023 - 04:50
“If we don’t confront Christian nationalism then we are leaving ourselves open to future attacks, like what we saw on January 6,” said one critic. In an effort to fill in what they say are critical gaps in the U.S. House select committee’s report on the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, faith Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 10/01/2023 - 04:49
Exclusive: American neocons helped destabilise Ukraine and engineer the overthrow of its elected government, a “regime change” on Russia’s western border. But the coup and the neo-Nazi militias at the forefront also reveal divisions within the Obama administration, reports Robert Parry. More than five years into his presidency, Barack Obama has failed to take full Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 10/01/2023 - 04:34
Council Motion on Stopping Data Discrimination:Council Notes: – That UK GDPR, and the Data Protection Act 2018 protects individuals from harmful or discriminatory uses of their data. It does so by imposing a duty on organizations to use people’s data in a legal, transparent, and fair way. – That without GDPR students couldn’t stop unfair […]
Created
Tue, 10/01/2023 - 04:30
Last Friday night and into the wee hours of Saturday morning, sleepless souls around the nation suffered through the spectacle of sad-sack Kevin McCarthy finally capturing his Holy Grail, the speakership of the House of Representatives. It was a uniquely unedifying spectacle. By the end it became downright uncomfortable watching McCarthy ritually humiliated hour after hour by members of his own party before they finally deigned to give him the gavel he has so desperately coveted for so long. But then, this is a common practice among Republicans these days. Just look at the way former President Trump treated his own vice president, Mike Pence, a man who ostentatiously abased himself for four long years only to be thrown to a slavering mob (at least metaphorically) when he refused to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power. Like McCarthy, Pence also keeps coming back for more, and apparently plans to launch an extremely quest for the presidential nomination in a party that holds him in total contempt. As Salon’s Amanda Marcotte writes on Monday morning, the Republican display over the past week was only a preview of what’s likely to come.
Created
Tue, 10/01/2023 - 04:29
Luciano Floridi, currently Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford and Professor of Sociology of Culture and Communication at the University of Bologna, has accepted an offer from Yale University to become the founding director of its Digital Ethics Center and professor in its Cognitive Science Program.   Professor Floridi is known for his work in philosophy of information, digital ethics, the ethics of artificial intelligence, and philosophy of technology, publishing several books and hundreds of articles on these topics, which you learn more about here. He has also consulted for Google, advised the European Commission on artificial intellligence, chaired a Parliamentary commission on technology ethics, to name just some of his non-academic work and service. Last year, he was awarded the highest honor the Italian government bestows, the Cavaliere di Gran Croce Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana.