Reading

I Don’t Eat Gluten or Dairy Anymore Except for When I Do

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-dont-eat-gluten-or-dairy-anymore-except-f…
Created
Thu, 23/03/2023 - 04:00

I’ve completely cut out gluten and dairy at this point except for when I eat them, which is often. They weren’t even that hard to eliminate, and I’d say the trick is still eating them daily. I’ve become way more mindful of what I’m putting into my body now, which is tons of gluten and dairy, all the time.

It’s something I’ve been trying for a while because I might have an intolerance, but honestly, since I started, I don’t feel any better at all, and I think it’s because I still eat gluten and dairy constantly. I guess I would say it’s been difficult at times not to indulge when the food is already in my mouth and sliding down my throat. Still, I understand the importance of treating my body like a temple, because we only get one body for this lifetime, and mine is full to the tits with cheese and bread.

They don’t care

https://digbysblog.net/2023/03/22/they-dont-care-3/
Created
Thu, 23/03/2023 - 03:30
The two-day poll, concluded on Tuesday, found 54% of respondents – including 80% of the former president’s fellow Republicans and 32% of Democrats – said politics was driving the criminal case being weighed by a Manhattan grand jury. Seventy percent of respondents, and half of Republicans, said it was believable that Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign paid the adult film actress Stormy Daniels for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter. Some 62% of respondents, including a third of Republicans, said it was also believable that Trump falsified business records and committed fraud. So a large number of Republicans obviously don’t care that he paid the hush money, and committed fraud. The rest are delusional. No surprise there.

How the Current Refusal to Deal Harshly with Failing Banks and Their Executives Will Create an Even Bigger Crisis — Yves Smith

http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2023/03/how-current-refusal-to-deal-har…
Created
Thu, 23/03/2023 - 03:14
Your humble blogger has been saying that the new bank rescue scheme, which is a covert backstop of nearly all uninsured deposits, is a disastrous extension of government support to institutions that are welfare queens save for executive and manager pay levels. And the Fed may make banks’ “Heads I win, tails you lose” bet even bigger by announcing that all deposits will be guaranteed.

We’ve argued since the crisis that banking is the most heavily government subsidized industry, far outstripping the military-surveillance complex in the support it gets from the great unwashed public. Yet every time banks predictably drive themselves off the cliff, they get even more goodies, with virtually nada in the way of new restrictions or punishment of miscreants. The US is keen to perp walk Donald Trump, but not bank executives.

Narrow Banking: A Bad Solution To A Non-Existent Problem — Brian Romanchuk

http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2023/03/narrow-banking-bad-solution-to-…
Created
Thu, 23/03/2023 - 02:16
Narrow banking is a concept for a bank that holds 100% reserves against deposits. It attracts people who are deeply concerned about the symbolic content of “money” on both the left (e.g. Positive Money) and the free market right (the Chicago Plan). Devotees of narrow banking are happy to talk your ear off about how their plans work, so I leave finding out more as an exercise as a reader. I just want to focus on the core principle: they want banks to not take risks lending deposits, so that “money” remains “money”: a numeric entry that corresponds in a 1:1 fashion to a claim on a “monetary asset,” like a gold coin or claims on specific gold coins, and not a messy credit relation....
Bond Economics
Narrow Banking: A Bad Solution To A Non-Existent Problem
Brian Romanchuk

Man sentenced to 28 months for racist and misogynist communications to MP Claudia Webbe

https://skwawkbox.org/2023/03/22/man-sentenced-to-28-months-for-racist-and-miso…
Created
Thu, 23/03/2023 - 01:30
Harmukh Doshi sentenced to 28 months’ imprisonment on 9 separate accounts of racially-aggravated harassment and offensive communications At Leicester Crown Court yesterday, Hasmukh Popatlal Doshi was convicted on six counts of sending offensive or menacing communications and three of inflicting racially-aggravated harassment, alarm or distress to Leicester East MP Claudia Webbe. This is far from […]

Bracing for impact

https://digbysblog.net/2023/03/22/bracing-for-impact-2/
Created
Thu, 23/03/2023 - 01:30
“Serious creativity” lacking from the left There isn’t a lot of outside-the-box thinking among Democrats. For all the Left’s attraction to novelty and appreciation for creativity, stepping outside their safe spaces is not something many established Democratic operatives do. They color inside the lines Republicans ignore. Greg Sargent warns that should Donald Trump be indicted by the Manhattan district attorney’s office over his concealing hush-money payments to a porn star, Democrats seem unprepared to meet both the moment and the expected Republican backlash: Democrats will have to marshal some serious creativity in response. The extraordinary move by House Republicans to insert themselves into Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation of Trump provides Democrats with an opening to do just that. This week, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and other top Republicans sent a letter to Bragg demanding documents and testimony related to expectations that Bragg might charge Trump over a hush-money payment to a porn actress in 2016.

William Mitchell — Former Bank of Japan governor challenges the current monetary policy consensus

http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2023/03/william-mitchell-former-bank-of…
Created
Thu, 23/03/2023 - 00:47
In the latest IMF Finance and Development journal (March 2023), there is an interesting article by the former governor of the Bank of Japan, Masaaki Shirakawa – It’s time to rethink the foundation and framework of monetary policy. It goes to the heart of the complete confusion that is now being demonstrated by central bank policy makers. With their ‘one trick pony’ interest rate attacks on inflation, not only have they been inconsequential in dealing with that target (the so-called price stability responsibility), but, in failing there, they have undermined the achievement of the other central bank target (financial stability) and probably worsened the chances of sustaining the third target (full employment). Sounds like a mess – and it is. We are witnessing what happens when Groupthink finally takes over an academic discipline and the policy making space. Blind, unidirectional policies, based on a failed framework, steadily undermining all the major goals – that is where we are right now.

Doubling down on oligarchy

https://digbysblog.net/2023/03/22/doubling-down-on-oligarchy/
Created
Thu, 23/03/2023 - 00:00
It’s a reflex Running for U.S. Senate is a pricey proposition. Candidates spent on average over $10 million a decade ago and nearly double that by 2016. The Citizens United decision means outside groups now pour in even more than candidates. With Democrats outraising Republicans in the Trump era, the GOP more than ever is looking to oligarchs for candidates who can self-fund (Politico): Both parties have relied on self-funders before. But this approach has taken on increasing importance for Republicans because they failed to counter Democrats’ massive grassroots fundraising in Senate races during the past two cycles. In 2022 alone, Democratic nominees outraised Republicans by $288 million in the six closest Senate races. The strategy is also an acknowledgment that the party’s reliance on super PACs funded by its richest supporters has been insufficient. In the last two elections, Republicans were unsuccessful in stopping Democrats from nabbing a narrow majority in the upper chamber.