Afternoon Tea 4.16.24 - Donkey Hide Economics
Delinquencies up, IG is blank, and the right to protest is under threat
Dry off from another soggy Wednesday with some wild stuff. Protest under threat, Nazi-promotion on X, and of course, credit card delinquencies are spiking! Get to the bottom for a link to the best video edit of Trump’s Gettysburg rambling I could find. I’d embed it but Twitter/X doesn’t allow that anymore because…reasons…
The Supreme Court abolishes the right to mass protest in three US states (Vox) I cannot underscore how important it is to make sure this doesn’t go national. DeRay’s personal brand of activism wasn’t my cup of tea, but the ways conservative legal theorists and legislators are trying to go after him is diabolical. This should be fought tooth and nail. The state has chipped away at protest for a decade now, as it is the bedrock of citizen’s ability to express themselves.
Verified pro-Nazi X accounts flourish under Elon Musk (NBC News) Huh, there’s money being made promoting Nazi content on the site that I continue to contend is being destroyed on purpose. 150 accounts that have been “verified” and are paying for premium subscriptions. When 7 top posts on your site are pro-Nazi, earning a combined 4,500,000+ impressions in a week, your non-Nazi advertisers might not be super pumped to keep spending.
Credit card delinquency is at the highest rate on record (Sherwood News) 3.5%, highest in quite some time. Not sure it’s highest ever, but we didn’t have credit cards during the Great Depression, so all bets are off. This seems fine dot jpeg
How China’s demand for donkey hide is devastating African communities (Reuters) Economies of scale are very hard to properly conceptualize of. Human brains aren’t great at imagining exponential growth, but the market will gladly scale for whatever is profitable or in demand.
Indian government ordered killings in Pakistan, intelligence officials claim (Guardian) & Pakistan has ‘credible evidence’ of India links to killings of 2 Pakistanis (AJZ) The Modi government won’t answer for this until the West demands it. So, I don’t expect justice for the 20 or so people Pakistan alleges were murdered.
The Intercept is running out of cash (Semafor) Why aren’t there more left-wing, progressive, or speak-truth-to-power publications? Because running one isn’t profitable, even with a healthy donor base. If The Intercept goes down during an election between a centrist and a fascist, the metaphor for America’s fall might be too ironic.
The great rewiring: is social media really behind an epidemic of teenage mental illness? (Nature) If you’re thinking of reading that “anxious generation” book about kids living on their phones by Haidt, don’t. His assertions are just that, declarative statements. The research, where it has even been done, does not support anything he says. The book, its fame, and associated profit, is an exercise in confirmation bias. Boomers, Gen X, and Millennials will buy it, read it, not interrogate it, be comforted that it agrees with their pre-existing conclusions, and then talk about it at professional & family gatherings. All while ignoring the Gen Zs who they could ask instead.
Angus Deaton won a Nobel Prize in economics. Now he says he got it wrong on globalization. (Business Insider) Globalization had awkward, problematic side-effects huh? It’s nice to see a Nobel-winning economist recognize that “union” isn’t a dirty word, but given the state of labor in the South, the guy’s realizations might be 50 years too late.
When Do We Stop Finding New Music? A Statistical Analysis (Stat Significant) Most people like the music from the era when they were young. They also essentially stop looking for new music when they become parents. I maintain that music preference is like sandwich topping choice: No matter how weird or gross you might think something is, there’s someone out there who thinks that sh*t is delicious and will happily put it into their face daily for the rest of their lives.
The disappearing Insta grid (One Thing) The new trend on Instagram? No photos, at all. None. A blank profile page. So all you IG people who never got around to posting a single photo are now the in-crowd. Enjoy your 12 minutes of incidental cool on stage with the heads who kept their JNCO pants.
Do you like Ken Burns? Then this Trump summary of Gettysburg is right up your alley. If you’ve been missing the quote, poem and vibe, I don’t blame you! Subscribe and see how a passage from the Gospel of Luke, poetry from Wendy Xu, and speed tabla fit into this week’s Tea!
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