Reading

Created
Tue, 17/12/2024 - 21:45

In the last decade, constant headlines have made reference to the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’. This phrase is now synonymous with the fact that millennials and younger generations depend on their parents for financial support when buying their first home. These conversations tend to come in two flavours. The first tastes of avocado toast […]

Created
Tue, 17/12/2024 - 16:49
Today, I consider the Greek situation, the decision by the UK Chancellor to further deregulate the financial services sector and then to calm everyone down or not, some music. The Financial Times published an article (December 12, 2024) – The astonishing success of Eurozone bailouts – which basically redefines the meaning of English words like…
Created
Tue, 17/12/2024 - 11:30
Trump only cares about his agenda of deportation, revenge, tariffs and personal profits. He’s fine with Elon doing whatever as long as it doesn’t interfere with his own agenda. The Daily Beast reported in his last term that when pressed about the rising deficit, he would say: “Yeah, but I won’t be here,” the president bluntly said, according to a source who was in the room when Trump made this comment during discussions on the debt. The episode illustrates the extent of the president’s ambivalence toward tackling an issue that has previously animated the Republican Party from the days of Ronald Reagan to the presidency of Barack Obama. But for those who have worked with Trump, it was par for the course. Several people close to the president, both within and outside his administration, confirmed that the national debt has never bothered him in a truly meaningful way, despite his public lip service. “I never once heard him talk about the debt,” one former senior White House official attested. He never talked about it when he ran for reelection both times either.
Created
Tue, 17/12/2024 - 10:00
The AP reports: A former FBI informant pleaded guilty on Monday to lying about a phony bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden and his son Hunter that became central to the Republican impeachment inquiry in Congress. […] Smirnov will get credit for the time he has served since his February arrest on charges that he told his FBI handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid President Biden and Hunter Biden $5 million each around 2015. Smirnov had been an informant for more than a decade when he made the explosive allegations about the Bidens in June 2020, after “expressing bias” about Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, prosecutors said. […] No evidence has emerged that Joe Biden acted corruptly or accepted bribes as president or in his previous office as vice president. While Smirnov’s identity wasn’t publicly known before the indictment, his claims played a major part in the Republican effort in Congress to investigate the president and his family, and helped spark a House impeachment inquiry into Biden.
Created
Tue, 17/12/2024 - 09:42
An independent expert talks about witnessing the extreme violence against Palestinians, a Texan congressman calls out Blinken for US complicity while Israel continues to bomb Syria. Greg Barns calls out Dutton as a danger to Australia. Respecting human rights while countering terrorism @UNGeneva Independent expert @profbensaul: “My job is to encourage gvts to respect human Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 17/12/2024 - 08:30
If you want to know where they get their information,here’s the breakdown:YouTube 90%TikTok 63%Instagram 61%Snapchat 55%Facebook 32% (down from 71%)WhatsApp 23%X 17% (down from 33%)Reddit 14%Threads 6% I have to wonder about the Youtube use. It could just be music or some other very specific interest there but if they ever get caught up in something and go down the Youtube rabbit hole it’s very dangerous. That site is full of disinformation and it’s very compellingly presented. I don’t know what to do about it exactly. YouTube is extremely valuable. I use it constantly myself. But if you don’t know what you’re looking at it can be disorienting and destructive. I use Tik Tok much less, but I go there enough to see how much fun it is and understand why the kids like it so much. And from what I gather it’s full of disinformation too. If we weren’t working overtime to destroy the education system we might try something like this:
Created
Tue, 17/12/2024 - 06:04

Seen for a political economic perspective, there’s always lots of topics needing analysis. This is evident in the array of articles in the new issue of Australia’s leading political economy journal. Topics include debates around green growth; the wages of childcare workers; the management of water; new industry policy interventions; taxing giant tech companies; and tensions between social democracy and neoliberalism.

Almost certainly, the most controversial article will be the first one: assessing what’s at stake in debates between advocates of ‘green growth’ and ‘degrowth’. Written by Tim Thornton, it identifies sources of confusion underlying the different viewpoints, suggests a typology of positions taken on ‘economic growth versus the environment’, and seeks to identify potentially common ground. Given the intensity with which some participants in these debates hold their positions, it is probably unrealistic to expect a cosy consensus to result. Hopefully though, Tim’s article will be widely read and discussed; and further submissions and rejoinders on this important topic could be featured in future issues of the journal.