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Mike Konczal
@rortybomb
, 3 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
I still find that people don't actually believe college was free for most of our history.

Here's a 1951 UCLA catalogue casually says tuition is free; fees are $400 in today's dollars. Watch out for that out of state tuition, almost $2K in today's dollars! registrar.ucla.edu/Portals/50/Doc…
I bring it up because I'm reading @caitlinzaloom's book on middle-class college debt, and looking at these older materials there's simply none of the anxiety about financing that permeates all the discussions today. Catalogue is like "oh yeah, nominal fees, keep a budget too."
@caitlinzaloom I should like write a real grant to do this, but I should get on a project where I have a US map on a website. You can click on your state, and get two centuries of scans of a yearly "yup, it's free" documents for the flagship college until the 1970s. It's was true!
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More from @rortybomb see all

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Mike Konczal
@rortybomb
For those reading the debates over student loans, here are 3 tells I use to see if the writer is conveying the problem. 1st is whether they are clear that, as a % of income, lower-income people have higher debt burdens and it's gotten worse. From Fed: federalreserve.gov/newsevents/spe… /1
You see a lot about how the absolute dollars of debt are higher further up the income chain, but we think of burdens as in percent of incomes, and the burden is real and severe for those at the bottom, particularly people of color. This drives the call for debt cancellation. /2
2nd tell concerns empirical point that monthly student loan payments for those paying, as a % of budgets (so payments/income), have been flat and low in past decade. A tell is whether this is seen as encouraging, as many see it, or as the absolute societal disaster that it is. /3
Read 6 tweets
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Mike Konczal
@rortybomb
Here's a thing I didn't know until my book: the Supreme Court was so out-of-control in the 1930s that even the Republican 1936 Platform said it had gone too far, with Herbert Hoover and other prominent GOP members calling for a constitutional amendment against it. /1
GOP was in a bad bind, because they argued both that the Supreme Court needed to be defended and the New Deal wasn't necessary as states could do it better. But then the Supreme Court invalidated states having a minimum wage for women in 1936, something it previously upheld. /2
As @JeffShesol's excellent book describes, this wasn't wonky administrative law about sick chickens; the minimum wage was extremely popular, and SCOTUS became erratic and unpredictable on how and why they'd let it survive, exactly what post-Lochner critics said would happen. /3
Read 6 tweets
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Mike Konczal
@rortybomb
One obvious comparison point to the newly launched "Green New Deal" that I haven't seen made is to Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" plan, and the similarities and differences are telling.

(This should be probably be a blog, bear with it.) 1/6
They both are/were markers on the parties' story and goals in power. For Dems it's health care, employment, security; for GOP it was tax cuts, privatization and a big devolution of the state and social insurance. It's why a budget document called for repealing Dodd-Frank! /2
Yet 1st difference: GOP agenda ran in exact opposite direction of what it advertised. Ending the deficit, but also massive tax cuts, eliminating taxes on capital/corporate income, estates, etc. Whether health care merges with climate will be seen, but it isn't the opposite. /3
Read 6 tweets

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Centrism Fan Acct 🔹
@Wilson__Valdez
Meanwhile, checking in on Glenn and woo boy.....there's a lot going on here.
1. His obsessive ability to shoehorn that ACTUALLY NSA/Deep State is the real source of neo-fascism (& ignore/defend Trump admin & actual white supremacists) is almost impressive.
2. "the easiest & least powerful targets" this is describing literal nazis marching in the streets.
(Just as he did in Charlottesville, where his immediate reaction was to come to the defense of the Nazis who killed someone- #Actually they were the real victims.....of people who want to take away their free speech).
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SaraKateW
@SaraKateW
I’m watching S01E01 of Game of Thrones and there’d better be fisting.
This is some Dungeons and Dragons ass shit.
Jamie Lannister can get it.
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Harsh Vora
@harsh_vora
Midway through Ronald Kahn's wonderful book 'The Future of Investment Management'.

The 1st half is solely focused on the evolution of investment management through the last 4 millennia.

And rightly so. Because #history matters.

A quick summary below.

[Retweet if helpful]
Investing as we know it today did not exist before the stock market crash of 1929 & the Great Depression that followed.

Slack regulations, inadequate company disclosures & the general inability to systematically analyse investments kept most investors out of the market.
This state of affairs, however, was soon changed by gurus like Graham, Dodd, Markowitz, Sharpe, Burr, Ross, & others who provided a systematic framework to analyse securities, define risk, & efficiently manage portfolios.
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Guillaume Chaslot
@gchaslot
The YouTube algorithm that I helped build in 2011 still recommends the flat earth theory by the *hundreds of millions*. This investigation by @RawStory shows some of the real-life consequences of this badly designed AI.
This spring at SxSW, @SusanWojcicki promised "Wikipedia snippets" on debated videos. But they didn't put them on flat earth videos, and instead @YouTube is promoting merchandising such as "NASA lies - Never Trust a Snake". 2/
A few example of flat earth videos that were promoted by YouTube #today:
3/
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Ajay
@R_Ajay_
#History/#Art thread – From my recent trip to Madurai/Tirunelveli. On Jain sites (some with a rich history dating back to at least the 3rd cent. BCE), early Pandyan rock-cut cave temples (7th-8th cent. CE) & the amazing Vettuvan koil.

Pic: Mahavira (~8 cent CE), Kizhakuyilkudi
Before I start on the places, the history around all this is fascinating & splits opinion. Is it apt to call the script Tamili/Tamil Brahmi? Did it develop independently in the Tamil country/come with the Jain monks from the north? Were 8,000 Jains actually impaled in Madurai?>
>Were the Saivites overaggressive in promoting their faith? Shall only be happy to discuss on these separately (unless it gets too long/irrational). And I’m not posting every inscription from the places here, despite their importance. Again, shall be happy to discuss them.
Read 41 tweets
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Dr. Richard Duckett
@richard_duckett
A short thread about 'doing' #History, and a glimpse of what I am working on.

#Burma #Myanmar #SOE #Force136 #WW2 #SWW
Step 1: Read translated interview
'After the battle, our company and the Chinese company were ordered to defend the Mawchi road and the Officer-in-Charge was Capt. Thompson of the Bengal Rifles. Jemedar Pan Mya and 16 soldiers were captured fighting the Japanese at Paletwa.'
Step 2: Check out Capt. Thompson
Thompson was not Bengal Rifles, he was 1st Battalion Burma Rifles. Translator or interviewee error? Not to worry. Error found.
Read 12 tweets

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