The word ‘narrative’ appears 41 times in the infamous Higgins memo, “POTUS and Political Warfare.” Guys, it’s time for some narrative critique. The narrative Higgins is most concerned about is something he calls “cultural Marxism,” which he defines in a paragraph at the top of page four of the memo: As used in this discussion, […]
I found a piece from two years ago on the notoriously far right, alt-right Public Broadcasting Service website entitled Column: Why the STEM gender gap is overblown by Denise Cummins, a research psychologist. She begins by noting that men don’t outnumber women in all areas of STEM, and she provides this graph:
“The Changing of the Guard:” the prescient 1980 book that foretold neoliberalism About a month ago I read the synopsis of an interview in which Thomas Frank described the near evisceration of the Democratic Party. Here’s his simple version: “[T]he Democrats have, what happened is that some years ago they decided they didn’t want to […]
Lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts Jon Chait Shoots at all the Ducks in a Row — and Manages to Miss (once) I admire both Jon Chait and Glenn Greenwald. They do not admire each other. I enjoy it when they debate. Sometimes they both make fools of themselves. Jon Chait wrote a blog post “The […]
by Peter Dorman (originally published at Econospeak) “Rational” Optimism? I just finished this long, rather convoluted meditation on “rational optimism”. Must we admit the world is getting better, getting better all the time? Really, there are two types of multidimensionality that need to be considered. The first is that “better” is, if it’s anything, vector […]
The Buchanan-MacLean Controversy The book, Democracy in Chains (with an even more lurid subtitle) by Nancy MacLean, a respected (until now) historian at Duke University makes a strong argument that the late James M. Buchanan of UVa, VaTech, and George Mason was the crucial link between the ancient states right racism of John C. Calhoun […]
According to the latest figures, 93.3% of federal prisoners are men. The male to female incarceration rate is also wildly lopsided in state and county facilities, and to my knowledge, pretty much everywhere else in the world. I also am unable to think of a single example where there is reason to believe that women […]
In which I (partially) disagree with Dean Baker about the stock market Dean Baker complained yesterday about pundits who talk about the stock market in terms of economic well-being: As someone who routinely considers both corporate profits and stock prices in terms of economic well-being, I disagree — somewhat.
On JOLTS, I continue to dissent The only two significant items of data in the second week of the month typically had been the JOLTS report and the Labor Market Conditions Index. I say, “had been” because the Fed has discontinued reporting the LMCI. Here’s their explanation: Although the LMCI was reconstructed back 50 years, […]
(Dan here…posted a day later) The Financial Crisis Tenth Anniversary Yesterday, August 9, is being widely proclaimed as the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the financial crisis that fully crashed in September, 2008, with the recession that began at the end of 2007 plunging more profoundly and widely after that. The specific event on […]