It’s London “nope” weather in Hackney this morning.
The crazy thing about neoliberals is that they love markets right up to the point that someone tries to create a market in their ideas. Biden has been forced to confront neoliberal madness head on
Highbrow media are setting up Sunak v Starmer as a battle of the centrist dads. Never was a frame so improbable. Sunak is a “state capacity libertarian” and Starmer a “reforming” Christian democrat. A right-wing battle far from the failing systems of country crashing into penury.
Some tools in the can. Looks pretty secure.
On changing the brushes on the motors when the battery is flat
Leave politics aside a sec and ask yourself, who is being feather-bedded when businesses are uncompetitive, have low productivity and live of rents? The owners of capital and the executives who see their returns and remuneration rise “to the moon”? Or the workers whose wages are stagnating?
In Britain, the Tories have decided the problem is that the workers enjoy a feather-bed of the right to strike and employment protections.
Sense of Wonder
There’s this sci-fi trope where our time-travelling hero in the past lets the future know when she is by taking out a classified ad for something that couldn’t exist at the time.
When I was studying physics at school, mechanics was just classical mechanics, and I kind of got this because I was studying physics just as the “standard model” was being named. Being a kid, I thought quantum mechanics, all the extra-curricular stuff I was reading about, was pretty new.
Imagine my surprise when, learning more about the history of science, I found out that “old” quantum mechanics was developed in the Victorian era, and “modern” quantum mechanics - that is, the stuff I thought was pretty recent - in the 1920s. That’s the same 1920s when planes had propellers and two wings, and Americans couldn’t buy a drink.
It was like Paul Dirac was marooned in the past, and letting the future know when he was.
Today, I chanced on a comment by Ian Tresman on a blog post by Richard Murphy that referenced a piece by Beardsley Ruml, then chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The piece was published in the winter 1946 edition of “American Affairs”, though was initially presented during the second world war. You can find it online - the article starts at page 35.
Give it a read. But beware: it will blow your mind. You won’t find anything in contemporary economics that so clearly and lucidly addresses the question “why does the government need to tax at all?” Almost 80 years and classical economics hasn’t caught up.
It’s like Beardsley Ruml is marooned in the past, and is letting our future know where he was.
Are Tories blind to structural problems? Does their privilege lead them to really, truly believe the world is a Disney movie?
one of the best ways for people to boost their income is not only to get into work if they are not in work already, but to work more hours or get upskilled to get a higher income.
Bought some nice-looking russets from the local M&S, but they’re rubbish: flavourless and squishy. So making apple pie with what I can find about the flat - “Classic Christmas spice”, ginger, Muscovado sugar, sweet-potato flour, and frozen vegan ready-made shortcrust pastry.