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[ericpmoss]

[guido]

Americans Shocked by Spectacle of Legislative Body Taking Action | The New Yorker

[BBB]

That's amusing.

[Christian Fox]

Americans Shocked by Spectacle of Legislative Body Taking Action | The New Yorker

That reads like an Onion piece run through a banality translator.

[guido]

That reads like an Onion piece run through a banality translator.

It is satire...

[mzilliox]

Is anyone else following Ryan Avent on twitter? Ryan Avent (@ryanavent) on Twitter

The ideas are coming in pieces, but the gist of it is that we're really under-appreciating the significance of government involvement in the currency markets right now.

- We're in a politically charged moment where the latest expansion has only now started to benefit the middle class.
- The public is not ready to deal with a recession economically or politically.
- Central banks don't have much room in monetary policy.
- Governments can't/won't use fiscal policy to keep the expansion going.
- So countries are turning to currency devaluation as a last ditch effort to prop up domestic production.
- The geopolitical problem emerges because propping up domestic production comes at a direct cost to competitors who also want to prop up their production, and who also have a restless population. You can see the potential for this to go badly.

In the past, the world has had a mix of countries with an excess of supply (low growth) and an excess of demand (inflation). But modern technology multiplying labor power means the industrialized world now has an excess of supply, and so there are too many sellers and not nearly enough buyers. To put it more simply, if rich countries are no longer ready or willing to run trade deficits, that changes everything.

If Avent is right, what's going on in the currency markets is a sign that we've transitioned to a new financial world that we don't understand because it's only now coming into existence.

Ive found this fascinating to watch. we have a group of folks who love to quote the constitution and old economic tombs for their policy. yet the one thing that used to be talked about in regards to government and the economy is that its government's role to eliminate bad actors, cheaters, and inefficiencies. but now our government is the bad actor, the cheater, the influencer, the one creating market inefficiency. there is nothing free about our markets, theres nothing democratic about our economy, and our president makes every effort possible to continue to influence the so called free markets. all the while they are weary of the "S" word, which would obviously mean no more free markets or private enterprise. but whats private anymore? when gov appointed officials are joining for profit corporations they used to regulate, we are not keeping true to privatization, we are encouraging cheating. its really weird we all stand here and watch and clap and go economy economy! i wonder how America came to worship the economy over everything else?

[CJones]

The Legend of Baltimore Jack: The Man Who Lived and Died on the Appalachian Trail
by Dan Koeppel
Outside Magazine

The Legend of Baltimore Jack | Outside Online

[guido]

Americans Shocked by Spectacle of Legislative Body Taking Action | The New Yorker

A more serious reaction...

Opinion | ‘Not a Good Start, Boris’ - The New York Times

[ides1056]

Mr. Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, was widely criticized for her failure to achieve a workable exit from the European Union. Yet she dutifully negotiated what may well be the only possible agreement, which Parliament rejected, and her integrity and motives were never questioned.

Mr. Johnson, by contrast, has built his career on exaggeration, showmanship and outright lies, presenting himself as whatever sells best at the moment.

In a nutshell.

[monadnocky]

Mr. Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, was widely criticized for her failure to achieve a workable exit from the European Union. Yet she dutifully negotiated what may well be the only possible agreement, which Parliament rejected, and her integrity and motives were never questioned.

Mr. Johnson, by contrast, has built his career on exaggeration, showmanship and outright lies, presenting himself as whatever sells best at the moment.

In a nutshell.

I think that Mrs. May will likely be seen in a very positive light come 25 years. She not only did the best she was able, I think she did all that she could possibly due given the (insane) circumstances.

[guido]

Opinion | The ‘Political Anarchist’ Behind Britain’s Chaos - The New York Times

[guido]

What if We Stopped Pretending the Climate Apocalypse Can Be Stopped? | The New Yorker

[ides1056]

Franzen is spot on.

In this respect, any movement toward a more just and civil society can now be considered a meaningful climate action. Securing fair elections is a climate action. Combatting extreme wealth inequality is a climate action. Shutting down the hate machines on social media is a climate action. Instituting humane immigration policy, advocating for racial and gender equality, promoting respect for laws and their enforcement, supporting a free and independent press, ridding the country of assault weapons—these are all meaningful climate actions.

[caleb]

The Franzen piece is really sobering. Reading it on my phone while I was still in bed this rainy morning wasn't the start I necessarily wanted, but maybe it was the start I needed.

There have been a series of articles in the National Review over the past week or so expressing shock and outrage that when the left talks about addressing our climate crisis they mean more than gradually increasing fuel efficiency standards while basically maintaining the status quo. Franzen does a good job expressing the enormity of the issue, like a morbidly obese person for whom weight is just the obvious sign that everything - everything - needs to change. The good news is that for us, like the morbidly obese person, every positive change is a meaningful change, even if necessarily insufficient.

Franzen's piece reminded me of Migel de Unamuno's 1931 story Saint Manuel Bueno, Martyr about a local parish priest who spends his life doing good works, but who secretly does not believe in God, or an afterlife, or an eternal reward. He does good works because they are right, not for an eventual payoff. And perhaps that's the sort of life that remains open to us.

[slwrnu]

As a Brit I have read most of the intelligent press, some quoted above, and whilst we have to move on somehow, I cannot stop thinking why Mr Cameron called a Brexit referendum when the consequences had not been thought through, and the public very largely had no idea, then Mr C effectively ran away, and then Mrs May called a snap election, which led to her being forced to form a coalition with a small number number of NI MPs who could hold the UK to ransom and also dominate the NI exit border debate going on with the EU. In Europe we need a masterful statesman or woman who can rise above the Ghastly Mess, but that person is not BJ who seems set on brinksmanship and buffoonery. He is clever, but that quality does not always come with judgement.

[ericpmoss]

An oldie but a goodie. It kills me to think that the people who sponsored this make the other decisions, too.

MK-Ultra

[ides1056]

yow

[BBB]

Franzen is spot on.

In this respect, any movement toward a more just and civil society can now be considered a meaningful climate action. Securing fair elections is a climate action. Combatting extreme wealth inequality is a climate action. Shutting down the hate machines on social media is a climate action. Instituting humane immigration policy, advocating for racial and gender equality, promoting respect for laws and their enforcement, supporting a free and independent press, ridding the country of assault weapons—these are all meaningful climate actions.

Climate change and immigration policy are clearly linked. This is a problem Australia has yet to grapple with.

Franzen's article is a good read. But, we do need to do more. To the extent there is a reluctance to tackle climate change because certain sectors of society do well out of the current status quo, the alternative economic model needs to be pushed and promoted.

Here are some ideas (from an Australian perspective), but they require much great refinement with the help of economists, engineers, scientists, agronomists and venture capitalists (etc).

Six sentences of hope: Defining a unifying vision in the face of the climate crisis | Richard Flanagan | Environment | The Guardian

If our leaders aren't prepared to lead on this issue, then we need new leaders. But, we clearly need help across the board to map out a new economic reality that the people can get behind. The old ways of doing things are broken and preserving the status quo is just harming the future.

[guido]

Opinion | How Democracy Dies, American-Style - The New York Times

[thollandpe]

Climate change and immigration policy are clearly linked. This is a problem Australia has yet to grapple with.

Franzen's article is a good read. But, we do need to do more. To the extent there is a reluctance to tackle climate change because certain sectors of society do well out of the current status quo, the alternative economic model needs to be pushed and promoted.

Here are some ideas (from an Australian perspective), but they require much great refinement with the help of economists, engineers, scientists, agronomists and venture capitalists (etc).

Six sentences of hope: Defining a unifying vision in the face of the climate crisis | Richard Flanagan | Environment | The Guardian

If our leaders aren't prepared to lead on this issue, then we need new leaders. But, we clearly need help across the board to map out a new economic reality that the people can get behind. The old ways of doing things are broken and preserving the status quo is just harming the future.

And part of this is simply taking action. Not to be fooled into inaction because it’s not the best action, or the perfect action. Because most often, the only wrong action is inaction. We have to move.

Rebecca Solnit recently wrote of her inspiration from the people in boats who rescued so many after Hurricane Katrina. They didn’t care if the odds were against them, it didn’t matter if they couldn’t save everybody. They could do something, they could save somebody, or at least try, and this is exactly what they set about doing.

The analogy that has helped me most is this: in Hurricane Katrina, hundreds of boat-owners rescued people—single moms, toddlers, grandfathers—stranded in attics, on roofs, in flooded housing projects, hospitals, and school buildings. None of them said, I can’t rescue everyone, therefore it’s futile; therefore my efforts are flawed and worthless, though that’s often what people say about more abstract issues in which, nevertheless, lives, places, cultures, species, rights are at stake. They went out there in fishing boats and rowboats and pirogues and all kinds of small craft, some driving from as far as Texas and eluding the authorities to get in, others refugees themselves working within the city. There was bumper-to-bumper boat-trailer traffic—the celebrated Cajun Navy—going toward the city the day after the levees broke. None of those people said, I can’t rescue them all. All of them said, I can rescue someone, and that’s work so meaningful and important I will risk my life and defy the authorities to do it. And they did.

--from the introduction to her updated edition of Hope in the Dark, offered as proof that we can fucking do this. Get in your damn boat and do what you can.