How Post-Watergate Liberals Killed Their Populist Soul
Fantastic piece tracing the history of monopoly control since the Depression and its political and economic effects.
Patman’s career reads as downright passionate, often marked by a vitality you might see today in an Elizabeth Warren—as when, for example, he asked Fed Chairman Arthur Burns, “Can you give me any reason why you should not be in the penitentiary?” Despite his lack of education, Patman had a savvy political and legal mind. In the late 1930s, the Federal Reserve Board refused to admit it was a government institution. So Patman convinced the District of Columbia’s government to threaten foreclosure of all Federal Reserve Board property; the Board quickly produced evidence that it was indeed part of the federal government.
Source: How Post-Watergate Liberals Killed Their Populist Soul – The Atlantic
Loose fashion
labo art
Democrats, Trump, and the Ongoing, Dangerous Refusal to Learn the Lesson of Brexit
People often talk about “racism/sexism/xenophobia” vs. “economic suffering” as if they are totally distinct dichotomies. Of course there are substantial elements of both in Trump’s voting base, but the two categories are inextricably linked: The more economic suffering people endure, the angrier and more bitter they get, the easier it is to direct their anger to scapegoats. Economic suffering often fuels ugly bigotry. It is true that many Trump voters are relatively well-off and many of the nation’s poorest voted for Clinton, but, as Michael Moore quite presciently warned, those portions of the country that have been most ravaged by free trade orgies and globalism — Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa — were filled with rage and “see [Trump] as a chance to be the human Molotov cocktail that they’d like to throw into the system to blow it up.”
Source: Democrats, Trump, and the Ongoing, Dangerous Refusal to Learn the Lesson of Brexit
When I told you so feels like sobbing terror vomit
It’s possible to argue that electability should not be the primary factor. That’s certainly reasonable: Elections often are and should be about aspirations, ideology, and opinion-changing leaders. But given the lurking possibility of a Trump presidency, is now really the time to gamble on such a risky general election candidate as Hillary Clinton?
While you’re waiting for the bus election results
Japan’s koseki system: dull, uncaring but terribly efficient.
I love effective bureaucracy.
Asymmetrical relationships
I love you Darwin.
Why Do Bigger-Brained Animals Have Longer Yawns?
I yawned about 20 times reading this
Friday Fabulous Flowers – Mums the word
I love chrysanthemums so much.
Try as I might
I used to ask why we treated disabled people so badly, but now I wonder why we choose to make so many sick and injured people disabled. By disabled I mean we push them out of society and treat them as burdens. But why do we decide “value to society” means being able to sit 40-60 hours a week in a florescent lit cubicle?
Loose fashion
Pomandere