My favorite reaction to these articles you post are the armchair economists who have decided that they’ve settled decades of ambiguity about what impact, if any, the minwage has. Then they start wringing their hands about automation (which is continuing apace justfinethankyou), or firing people or small businesses…

This is just a quick note: you have no business calling yourself a leftist if you’re defending the boss. Jesus.

have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.

I can almost see my house from there. But this is interesting because it’s an old picture of Phoenix. Now where that old hotel/radio tower is, there’s a massively built up downtown campus for ASU, including the j-school and law school. This brings in huge condo developers (see Portland on the Park), but it’s a mixed…

But really this whole album is amazing:

This was a phenomenal essay; thank you for writing it. I use this as a case study (I teach philosophy, coincidentally, at one of those didn’t-get-into-the-flagship regional comps), when talking about modes of justice. When they first get the overview, the loudest voices are white and male, and all piss and vinegar.

My favorite episode:

Highlight of my young life was getting all my Bruno and Boots books autographed. This is the first I've heard he was only huge in the upper Midwest. Everyone else's loss I guess.

Hopefully these sorts of policies are the first steps toward student loan cancellation generally, which is sorely needed.

How to take care of a Keurig:

I taught at SBP for a couple of years; the history of the helipad on the field goes back to Charlie Cawley of the now-defunct MBNA who liked to chopper in when he felt like it. He used to land at an adjacent MBNA, but I guess the helipad was shut down after the BoA sale.

Nobody caring if you study is such a good point. About this time of year, with the changing of the seasons, is a small parade of undergraduates who come to my office, tell me of their social, personal, and work lives, asking me if there’s anything they can do to catch up (and these are often upperclass students). I…

Student loans need to be abolished and K-PhD should be free

All reductions of payouts to SS are political decisions by legislators, and this talk of funding is a way of obscuring that. You’re right that “going into debt” isn’t paying for SS, but you unfortunately think that FICA does “fund” it. So to be clear, FICA does not fund SS.

Social security in no way faces a funding crisis and suggesting that the “funds” are depleted like it comes from a piggy bank shows a lack of knowledge of public finance. Has a government-issued check ever bounced?

Such a good point about that fight scene in Empire. It’s so claustrophobic, and it causes such dread because the best way to deal with the sheer menace that is Vader is massive distance... at least up until he becomes a conflicted daddy.

This is a really excellent discussion you’re highlighting, and one of the things that burns me up. Here’s more resources about Chartalism aka Modern Money Theory, that I think is a clearly more accurate description of how sovereign finances work:

Social Security funds are not “drying up.” Do you think there’s just a big vault that holds cash or something? Come on.

Christopher Hitchens, noted asshole on many subjects, was spot on with Mother Teresa when describing her as a, “ghastly, horrible, Albanian midget.” Her order had no problem shipping her to Berkeley for health care and taking money from despots, but would then turn down medical care for the people they took into their…

Hey guys, I just realized that a shady unregulated market is doing bad stuff. But hey guys, I also know the solution; no regulation from the government. Problem solved high five do you even econ101 bro.