Thread by @delong

BRIEFLY NOTED: For 2021-11-01 Mo, by @delong braddelong.substack.com/p/briefly-note…

I see the late David Graeber is in the news today. I do not trust anything he ever wrote. Let me tell you why. Let me pick a chapter at random from Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years… I land on... 1/

...chapter 12… I start reading… I come to the third page <ttps://archive.org/details/DebtTheFirst5000Years/page/362/mode/2up> and find:

"I would hear occasional rumors of secret gold vaults underneath the Twin Towers in Manhattan.... After the Towers were destroyed… 2/

[Graeber, cont.:] ...one of the first questions many New Yorkers asked was: What happened to the money?... Some spoke of legions of emergency workers secretly summoned… desperately carting off tons of bullion…. One particularly colorful conspiracy theory suggested that... 3/

[Graeber, cont.:] ...the entire attack was really staged by speculators…. The truly remarkable thing… is that.. I did a little research and discovered that, no, actually, it’s true..." & I continued this thread at: <

https://twitter.com/delong/status/1455173184127324161

>

Briefly Noted continues below... 4/

...One Audio: Jeet Heer: Podcast: The Deep Roots of GOP Extremism: ‘A conversation with Will Wilkinson about Leo Strauss, Harry Jaffa, and the journey from Lincoln to Trump…. A recurring them... is that the Republican turn towards authoritarianism is one of major problems... 5/

[Jeet Heer, cont.:]... in American politics. Recently, an episode of the superb podcast Know Your Enemies di <jeetheer.substack.com/p/podcast-the-…> … 6/

...Very Briefly Noted: Financial Times: Jair Bolsonaro’s Faults Go Well Beyond the Pandemic: ‘Brazil’s far-right leader will be remembered for bungling the economy too… <ft.com/content/473395…>

Brian Merchant: Why Facebook Became Meta: ‘The Real Reason Facebook Changed... 7/

.. Its Name: Mark Zuckerberg wants to be the hero of the metaverse because he knows Facebook is boring… LINK: <theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…>... 8/

John Paul Koning: Does It Make a Difference If Tether Lends Out New USDt?: ‘Tether has misadvertised itself… says in its terms... 9/

...of service... LINK: <jpkoning.blogspot.com/2021/10/does-i…>

Davide Brignone, Alistair Dieppe, Martino Ricci: Quantifying Risks of Persistently Higher Us Inflation: ‘Using the ECB-Global model, this column estimates the impact on inflation of the fiscal stimulus to be limited... 10/

... Three scenarios… a steeper Phillips curve, stronger fiscal multipliers, and rising inflation expectations. The results suggest that the impact on inflation from these sources of risk is likely to be moderate, unless all of the risks materialise simultaneously, and... 11/

... the Fed does not depart from the assumed monetary policy path… <voxeu.org/article/quanti…>

Steve M.: A Pro-Worker Party Without All that Silly Economic Populism: ‘Axios reports that Marco Rubio… “will call for a requirement that company boards are... 12/ committed to U.S....

... national interest and devoid of conflicts of interest with nations such as China. Rubio will contrast that with what he says are ‘requirements that companies’ board of directors be sufficiently “diverse,” like what the Biden administration is pushing’…” We know what... 13/

.. this is… Fox News ragebait instead of ideas. Fox viewers hate China, though they probably can’t tell you why… <nomoremister.blogspot.com/2021/11/a-pro-…>
Elizabeth Bear: I’ve Been Thinking About Healthcare, Health Outcomes, & American Exceptionalism... 14/

...Parker Molloy: Time for a Social (Media) Experiment.... Daniel Larison: China Hawks Want to Play an Exceptionally Dangerous Game of Chicken.... Henry Farrell: The Politics of Information…

LINK: <fivebooks.com/best-books/pol…> 15/

...Packy McCormick: Sc3nius.... Addison Del Mastro: Main Street Manufacturing.... Jonathan V. Last: Facebook’s Pivot to Meta... David French: J.D. Vance & the Great Challenge of Christian Malice... 16/END