That restaurant review was golden. As I was reading it I thought, They were Calabashed! Because once many years ago my husband and brother in law and I went to a “seafood restaurant” on the beach called Calabash, which was expensive, and we kept waiting for it to be good. It never got good. Nobody in the restaurant was talking or laughing—I mean that literally. And the wait staff never said anything typical like “how’s everything?” Because they knew. They all knew. We were being Calabashed.
Still wrapping my head around the "We Are Not Pagans" substack article.The author was all over the map but that should be expected from a philosopher. "Bryn Mawr Wiccans"? Ouch! Guy knew how to stick the knife in and turn it! I think the entire article is about how we can never go back to the Pagan mindset of antiquity.
Also some sad and terrifying studies of people who went over the edge. His buddy who turned into a weird Jew-basher was just pathetic.
The author might be onto something about mid-level people who think conspiracy literature gives them some insight into the Way Things Work and thereby gain STATUS.
<i>One of my other pieces was a roundup of worthy books for Cyber Monday. Substack can only handle so many dozens of links, so if you liked that, but were up for more, you can find the entire 100+ book list of personal recommendations posted here.</i>
The link goes to the 11/29 Open Thread at GNXP which doesn't include the 100+ list. What's maddening is that I remember seeing it somewhere and can't find it now. I'm reading The Best and the Brightest and really want to know more about 20th century China up to the establishment of the PRC. Halberstam seems to think Mao is modern and not bad and Chiang is feudal and awful, which seems kind of cartoonish to me.
My kids were that age 30 years ago. We used to get materials from the school, a supposedly good school in a well-to-do suburb, that were just as sub literate as the ones you see now.
So, nothing new here, and I am not even sure that there is much of a trend.
Just a short comment on only one of the several issues you refer to. I'm not a subscriber to Yglesias' site but I have serious doubts that he could say anything that makes sense about the Fed and monetary policy. I'm not talking about monetary theory and history, I'm talking about what the Fed does today and how it affects the economy --the U.S. economy, and the world economy. If you want to understand any central bank, you should start by asking the two questions you should ask any organization that intermediates funds: one about the sources of the funds, and the other about the uses. Today, central banks are funded both by "printing money" and by "borrowing". Since 1980, the relative importance of the two sources has been changing and today most of the funding comes from "borrowing". Today, central banks fund both government and government-dictated users. The final beneficiaries of that funding are those that appropriate the benefits of the users' spending (for some time, most additional spending of both government and other users has been direct transfer payments to political constituencies, and the remaining to pay for building things of benefit to those demanding whatever they produce). Yes, I'm talking about the flows, not the stocks as reported in central banks' balance sheets. Their stocks could be wiped out in just a second by the Treasury or the Minister/Secretary of Finance (no bankruptcy law applies to central banks), although rarely governments are willing to pay the political cost of doing it.
That restaurant review was golden. As I was reading it I thought, They were Calabashed! Because once many years ago my husband and brother in law and I went to a “seafood restaurant” on the beach called Calabash, which was expensive, and we kept waiting for it to be good. It never got good. Nobody in the restaurant was talking or laughing—I mean that literally. And the wait staff never said anything typical like “how’s everything?” Because they knew. They all knew. We were being Calabashed.
Still wrapping my head around the "We Are Not Pagans" substack article.The author was all over the map but that should be expected from a philosopher. "Bryn Mawr Wiccans"? Ouch! Guy knew how to stick the knife in and turn it! I think the entire article is about how we can never go back to the Pagan mindset of antiquity.
Also some sad and terrifying studies of people who went over the edge. His buddy who turned into a weird Jew-basher was just pathetic.
The author might be onto something about mid-level people who think conspiracy literature gives them some insight into the Way Things Work and thereby gain STATUS.
Can we have a free lunch a few months after you originally post the piece behind the paywall?
<i>One of my other pieces was a roundup of worthy books for Cyber Monday. Substack can only handle so many dozens of links, so if you liked that, but were up for more, you can find the entire 100+ book list of personal recommendations posted here.</i>
The link goes to the 11/29 Open Thread at GNXP which doesn't include the 100+ list. What's maddening is that I remember seeing it somewhere and can't find it now. I'm reading The Best and the Brightest and really want to know more about 20th century China up to the establishment of the PRC. Halberstam seems to think Mao is modern and not bad and Chiang is feudal and awful, which seems kind of cartoonish to me.
"You can’t make this up"
My kids were that age 30 years ago. We used to get materials from the school, a supposedly good school in a well-to-do suburb, that were just as sub literate as the ones you see now.
So, nothing new here, and I am not even sure that there is much of a trend.
Just a short comment on only one of the several issues you refer to. I'm not a subscriber to Yglesias' site but I have serious doubts that he could say anything that makes sense about the Fed and monetary policy. I'm not talking about monetary theory and history, I'm talking about what the Fed does today and how it affects the economy --the U.S. economy, and the world economy. If you want to understand any central bank, you should start by asking the two questions you should ask any organization that intermediates funds: one about the sources of the funds, and the other about the uses. Today, central banks are funded both by "printing money" and by "borrowing". Since 1980, the relative importance of the two sources has been changing and today most of the funding comes from "borrowing". Today, central banks fund both government and government-dictated users. The final beneficiaries of that funding are those that appropriate the benefits of the users' spending (for some time, most additional spending of both government and other users has been direct transfer payments to political constituencies, and the remaining to pay for building things of benefit to those demanding whatever they produce). Yes, I'm talking about the flows, not the stocks as reported in central banks' balance sheets. Their stocks could be wiped out in just a second by the Treasury or the Minister/Secretary of Finance (no bankruptcy law applies to central banks), although rarely governments are willing to pay the political cost of doing it.