Reading

Created
Wed, 04/10/2023 - 23:09
Up at The New Yorker this morning, I’ve got a double review of Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s new book, Tyranny of the Minority, and Joseph Fishkin and William Forbath’s The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution, which came out last year. My essay addresses the Constitution and the rise of the right, and asks whether any part of the Constitution might help us counter the right. I come out, surprisingly, thinking that, maybe, yes, it might. That’s what I learned from Fishkin and Forbath’s “wonderfully counterintuitive” book, as I say. The other surprise, for me, is the shift in Levitsky and Ziblatt’s position. Five years ago, you may recall, they were the leading scholarly voices arguing against the norm erosion of Donald Trump […]
Created
Wed, 04/10/2023 - 23:00

Katz’s Deli has been serving New Yorkers our delicious food for over a hundred years. As the general manager for the last twenty of those years, I’ve seen my fair share of odd customers. And it goes without saying that we welcome people of every race, creed, and sexual orientation to come sit and dine with us at any time.

Even so, we still have to put our foot down every now and then when a customer gets a little too out of hand. So listen, lady, no matter how good the food is, you cannot have an orgasm in this restaurant.

Katz’s is a New York institution. It might even be the most famous deli on Earth. People come from every corner of the globe to try our pastrami, corned beef, and brisket sandwiches. The line often wraps around the building and down Houston Street. So, yeah, we’re pretty confident our sandwiches are good.

But our sandwiches can’t be that good, okay? At least not good enough to have a full-on orgasm. Or was it a fake orgasm? It had to be real, right?

Created
Wed, 04/10/2023 - 19:00
Julia Giese, Michael McLeay, David Aikman and Sujit Kapadia Central banks have been using a range of monetary policy and macroprudential tools to maintain monetary and financial stability. But when should monetary versus macroprudential tools be used and how should they be combined? Our recent paper develops a macroeconomic model to answer these questions. We … Continue reading Unifying monetary and macroprudential policy
Created
Wed, 04/10/2023 - 18:28
It’s Wednesday and I have a few observations on a few things today. I have written before about how the rising interest rates in many nations, far from being deflationary, have demonstrably increased inflationary pressures. The two pathways that this impact occurs are: one, the boost to wealth among creditors coupled with significant proportions of…
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Wed, 04/10/2023 - 16:03
How do HS2 and other white elephants get commissioned? It’s clientelism – the subtle form of corruption. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 28th September 2023 In 2010, when a high-speed rail line from London to the north – HS2 – was proposed by the outgoing Labour government, I wrote an article arguing that […]
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Wed, 04/10/2023 - 09:00
Now what? In a 45-minute roll call vote, the House moved to oust McCarthy as speaker. The final vote was 216 to 210 in favor of Matt Gaetz’s motion to vacate, with eight Republicans joining Democrats. The rest of the Republicans are pissed. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), now the Speaker Pro Tempore, emphatically gaveled the House into recess subject to the call of the chair. pic.twitter.com/VfQWzIqMQZ — Greg Giroux (@greggiroux) October 3, 2023 Earlier today Matt Gaetz said he would support Steve Scalise for Speaker but I don’t see him taking it. He’s got a recent cancer diagnosis and is on chemotherapy. I doubt his doctor would recommend taking one of the most stressful jobs in the world right now. Who else? Nobody knows. This is the first time in history that a speaker has been ousted with a motion to vacate the chair. It was only tried once before back in 1910 and the speaker survived. And it divided the Republican Party for many years after: The House has never removed a speaker and hasn’t held a floor vote on removing a speaker in well over a century. In 1910, Speaker Joseph G.