Reading

“Being a good (decision maker) begins with having the right information and mental models for how the world works” (Jim Chalmers, 2023) In his recent essay, the Treasurer of Australia Jim Chalmers has met...

"As soon as we have our submarines, you’re fucked”

INET Research on Financial Sector Weakness and Too Big to Fail

After 2008 the financial system was supposed to be fixed thanks to Dodd-Frank, stress tests, higher capital requirements, and all that. Suddenly we now wake up to discover that the collapse of a single bank may mortally threaten large segments of the banking system and that authorities are reinstating the financial equivalent of Medicare for All (for financiers only). And this amid news reports that SVB leaders lobbied against regulatory restraints and higher FDIC fees and even paid out bonuses just before the takeover.

INET was founded in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to help rethink the role finance plays in economic theory. Since then, it has broadened its mission, but this concern remains central to our purpose. INET has supported many of the best critical discussions of financial reform -- too many to list easily here. Naturally, we continue to commission and publish work in this area.

Among the L-NP's fraudulent Robodebt tactics was using the threat of Federal Police punishment as an intimidation method. read now...

Former PM Scott Morrison’s wife Jen has promised the part-time member for Cook to take him to Subway for a sandwich and a cookie, in an effort to cheer him up after he watched current PM, Anthony Albanese in America... Read More ›

The bailout of Silicon Valley Bank’s depositors means every dollar in U.S. bank accounts is insured by the federal government.

The post Hooray, We Now Have Medicare for All (Bank Deposits)! appeared first on The Intercept.

“Navalny” is a slick production full of highly dubious claims, misinformation, and enough new Cold War propaganda impact to win an Oscar for best documentary. A version of this piece was originally published at The Komisar Scoop. Editor’s note: The Grayzone has amended this article, removing two claims that were not properly sourced in the article originally published by The Komisar Scoop, and replacing one regarding Navalny’s health condition with articles sourced to Intellinews and the Western-backed Russian opposition outlet, […]

The post Oscar-winning ‘Navalny’ documentary is packed with misinformation appeared first on The Grayzone.

Inept Labour right-winger contradicts Starmer contradicting himself Woeful Labour right-winger Jonathan Ashworth made a mug of himself on national television over the Gary Lineker affair this morning. Ashworth appears not to have got the memo after his party’s embarrassing u-turn from attacking Lineker for criticising the UK’s fascist-adjacent government for using fascist language about desperate […]

Something rotten in WHO's Comms Shop.

HOW EASY WAS IT? I will get to that eventually, but do you want to know what is NOT easy? Sleep. Ah, elusive sleep. Every night is a grab bag of GERD, insomnia, sleep sweats, racing thoughts, and existential dread. There is a meme that says something akin to “if you need three or moreContinue reading 120. Easy Baked Stew →

According to The Washington Post's reconstruction of the raid in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, Israeli military fired repeatedly into a group of civilians taking shelter between a mosque and a clinic, killing two and wounding three others.

The post 3D Analysis Shows How Israeli Troops Fired Into Group of Civilians appeared first on scheerpost.com.

In their efforts to industrialise, African states are looking beyond the traditional path of transition from agrarian to industrial economies by seeking to leverage on their natural resources, both in/on land and ocean, to power industrialisation. In this blog post, drawing from a new article in Journal of Agrarian Change, that agrarian political economy theories of industrialisation need to be advanced to cover the ocean and offshore petroleum production in Ghana.

The post Beyond Agrarian Transitions in Africa appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).

It’s happening A man is suing a woman’s friends for helping her obtain abortion pills: A Texas man is suing three women under the wrongful death statute, alleging that they assisted his ex-wife in terminating her pregnancy, the first such case brought since the state’s near-total ban on abortion last summer. Marcus Silva is represented by Jonathan Mitchell, the former Texas solicitor general and architect of the state’s prohibition on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, and state Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park. The lawsuit is filed in state court in Galveston County, where Silva lives. Silva alleges that his now ex-wife learned she was pregnant in July 2022, the month after the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and conspired with two friends to illegally obtain abortion-inducing medication and terminate the pregnancy. The friends texted with the woman, sending her information about Aid Access, an international group that provides abortion-inducing medication through the mail, the lawsuit alleges. Text messages filed as part of the complaint seem to show they instead found a way to acquire the medication in Houston, where the two women lived.

The theory is a vending machine: you feed it input in certain prescribed forms for the desired output; it gurgitates for a while; then it drops out the sought-for representation, plonk, on the tray, fully formed, as Athena from the brain of Zeus. This image of the relation of theory to the models we use […]

.

~ Today's Water Cooler: Open Thread ~

With the re-opening of China and with the ending of Covid restrictions, a new confidence seems to be surging through the country. While the next two years are seen to be a particularly dangerous time, with the real prospect of armed conflict with the US, beyond that it is felt that China’s time will have Continue reading »

Hatchet Speed built a career as a Beltway contractor and Navy reservist while praising Putin and Hitler.

The post Pentagon Analyst Kept Intel Job After Joining Jan. 6 Mob, Planned to Kidnap Jewish Leaders appeared first on The Intercept.

The post Uh Oh appeared first on scheerpost.com.

More bans! As the poster writes: “any major or minor that… utilizes pedagogical methodology associated with Critical Theory” This would theoretically include: — Gender and African-American and other “studies” disciplines — Literature — Sociology — History — Anthropolgy — Political science And other majors. The comments are interesting. Most of them are in favor and excuse the authoritarian overreach by saying that it’s all fine because it doesn’t ban private colleges from doing it. Others point out that professors would still be allowed to apply this sort of critical analysis in their teaching but the colleges could not offer majors in anything that uses it. (I don’t think that solves the problem.) Mostly, though people on that twitter thread really seem to love this solution because: CRT, etc., are founded on logical fallacies, the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy in particular, and taxpayers ought not be compelled to pay for teaching of ways of thinking that can only lead kids astray. Lol.