The Frenchness of English; dog preferences; very briefly noted; Trying Again to Understand Recent Monetary Policy; Sundowning in America—Donald’s dementia—& England ca. 1900 as the Only True Steampower-Industrial Society EVAR, & BRIEFLY NOTED: For 2024-04-15 Mo… Subscribe now ONE VIDEO: Is English Just Badly Pronounced French? It really is a creole that escaped from its bounds… Share ONE IMAGE: Multiple Dog Beds, Dog Rugs, & Dog Cushions… …but where does Rosie most prefer to hang out? In the dirt of the flowerbed: Share Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality Very Briefly Noted: Econo ..read more

On the "Sonderweg" of the Anglo-Saxons… Subscribe now Adam Tooze <https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/top-links-399-industrialization-before>, following a tip from Joseph Francis, sends us to: Economies Past at the University of Cambridge: Share CAMPOP says: Primary sector: agriculture, forestry and fishing; Secondary sector: mining, manufacturing and construction; Tertiary sector: anyone in services. That has got to be wrong—on the graph, “mining” does not appear to be included in “secondary”: their “secondary” measure appears to be manufacturing and construction only. If it inc ..read more

What do we think of the Federal Reserve’s doing a 25-bp policy-rate reduction in June?; Nilay Patel turns SEO into an art form; the distribution of world manufacturing; BREXIT effects on UK video; very briefly noted; & Are Editors Useful? Noah Smith Says: NO!!; READING: Patricia Crone on the Agrarian Landlord-Dominated Gunpowder-Empire as the Normal Climax Societal Order of the East African Plains Ape...; HOISTED: On Ryan Avent’s Meditations on Trumpism; Scratchpad: No, for the Federal Reserve to Cut Interest Rates by 25 Basis Points in June Would Not Be a Mistake...; Trying to Puzzle Thro ..read more

Is it now time to disintermediate the editorial process? &, if so, for how long has this been true?... Subscribe now Refer a friend In my experience: About one editor in twenty is a true genius. About one editor in ten is useful. About thirteen editors in twenty cause delays and extra work, while having no net effect on the quality of what is ultimately published—their good suggestions are counterbalanced by the bad requirements they impose. About three editors in twenty are harmful—about as harmful as the good editors are useful. And about one editor in twenty wants to make t ..read more

barring exceptional & extraordinary historical accidents, of course. From Patricia Crone: Pre-Industrial Societies. & why is this still the best short thing I have to hand on the cultural-political-societal divergence of the Dover Circle societies, even though it was written more than a generation ago? Has my mind become ossified, and there is something much newer and better that I simply do not recognize? Or what?... Subscribe now Share I believe that the reasons I still find the book worth assigning—still find it worth re-reading and re-re-reading for myself—is a combination of ..read more

Pulling this from a year and a half ago out on its own so that I will more easily be able to find it later... Subscribe now Refer a friend Ryan Avent: What Is Trumpism, Exactly? ‘‘I sat reflecting on the chapter in Brad DeLong’s new book which discusses the rise of fascism. Mussolini… off socialism, impressed by the power of ethno-nationalism, and keen to lead a mass movement… crept and felt his way toward a set of core principles, based in large part on what seemed to work best: another algorithm, learning from incoming data…. Brad flirts with the notion that actually there was never much ..read more

A scratchpad… Subscribe now Share Economics: I agree that a 25 basis-point Federal Reserve rate cut in June would as a mistake be one "comparable to… [those] the Federal Reserve was making in the summer of 2021…”, but that is because I believe that there was no mistake then—that the Federal Reserve was playing it completely right in the summer of 2021. That is because of the asymmetry in the loss function. You cannot effectively stimulate the economy if you land at the zero interest-rate lower bound. By contrast, you can always effectively restrict the economy by raising interest rates wher ..read more

For the first time since 2009-2010, when I (mistakenly) believed that Bernanke at the Fed & Obama & the center of gravity of his advisors understood the seriousness of the situation & were about to take appropriate action to rapidly restore full employment, my short-term macro forecasts are going sufficiently awry to make me suspect the reliability of my vision of the Cosmic All. Hence I am trying to think about this. My current guesses? A 40% chance that things are simply delayed by the long and variable lags, a 30% chance that I am in for a big surprise as it turns out that that ..read more

Fidel Castro needs to micromanage bread-baking; Arkansas sent into a state of emergency by solar eclipse; TSLA’s history as a profit-making institution; WASP ethnic food; & Large-Scale Transcontinental Societal Coöperation in the Classical-Age East-African Plains Ape, & BRIEFLY NOTED: For 2024-04-06 Sa… Subscribe now SubStack NOTES: Really-Existing Socialism: Really-existing socialist leadership cults had a very different vibe than fascist ones did or that neofascists do. The fascist and neofascist vibe was one of an angry person who shared your enemies and fought them. The really-exis ..read more

Trying to arrest people's attention by making them recognize how strange are the ways that we humans manage to get things done—when, that is, we actually manage to do things, as opposed to fail to do them. Examples: Fidel Castro tries to get bread baked and beer trucked in Cuba, in the face of “vast bureaucratic incompetence affecting almost every realm of daily life, especially domestic happiness”, & the Council & Assembly of Athens seek to get 50 tons of metal created & then moved up to 2500 miles to the top of the Acropolis… Subscribe now I am gearing up to start reviewing Da ..read more