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Created
Thu, 23/05/2024 - 18:00
Marco Garofalo, Giovanni Rosso and Roger Vicquery Most international trade is denominated in dominant currencies such as the US dollar. What explains the adoption of dominant currency pricing and what are its macroeconomic implications? In a recent paper, we explore a rare instance of transition in aggregate export invoicing patterns. In the aftermath of the … Continue reading Selling England (no longer) by the pound: currency-mismatches and the dollarisation of UK exports
Created
Thu, 23/05/2024 - 16:23
The Australian – Productivity Commission – was created in 1998 as a result of an amalgamation between the Industry Commission (established 1990), the Bureau of Industry Economics (established 1978) and the Economic Planning Advisory Commission (established 1983). As you will read below, its antecedents go back to 1921. The Commission is one of many government-funded…
Created
Thu, 23/05/2024 - 11:00
There is no longer any doubt I guess someone at the beach must have called Mrs Alito the c-word too. The NY Times reports: Last summer, two years after an upside-down American flag was flown outside the Virginia home of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., another provocative symbol was displayed at his vacation house in New Jersey, according to interviews and photographs. This time, it was the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, which, like the inverted U.S. flag, was carried by rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Also known as the Pine Tree flag, it dates back to the Revolutionary War, but largely fell into obscurity until recent years and is now a symbol of support for former President Donald J. Trump, for a religious strand of the “Stop the Steal” campaign and for a push to remake American government in Christian terms. Three photographs obtained by The New York Times, along with accounts from a half-dozen neighbors and passers-by, show that the Appeal to Heaven flag was aloft at the Alito home on Long Beach Island in July and September of 2023. A Google street view image from late August also shows the flag.
Created
Thu, 23/05/2024 - 10:01
UN Can’t Feed Rafah Anymore

And soon, maybe not any part of Gaza. (Bear in mind that what they were feeding before was averaging something north of 200 calories a day according to some estimates I’ve seen.)

The United Nations suspended food distribution in the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Tuesday due to a lack of supplies and an untenable security situation caused by Israel’s expanding military operation. The U.N. warned that humanitarian operations across the territory were nearing collapse…

The U.N.’s World Food Program said it was running out of food for central Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people are now living.

Created
Thu, 23/05/2024 - 09:30
No more rainbow colors, damn it! Red, white and blue ONLY for Freedom Summer. By the way, Florida Freedom extends to your dietary choices as well. So far this year, lawmakers in Florida and Alabama have made it a criminal act to manufacture and sell lab-grown meat in their states. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) went first, signing a bill earlier this month and warning cellular agriculture companies: “Take your fake lab-grown meat elsewhere … we’re not doing that in the state of Florida.” It isn’t actually available but damn it, red states are banning it anyway. Apparently, the mere idea of saving the planet and making it possible to not have to actually kill animals for animal protein is oppressive. I feel so free, don’t you?