great stuff, kind of a nightmare to take on a real attempt at understanding the state of play and all the factions in and outside the region

I would like to be paged when said expert explains it, can I do that somehow? or does someone need to @ me?

2 and 4

hilarious

clown

It really has been too long, I wish I could have recognised the sublime in 100 days no garfield as it was unfolding.

It was truly a beautiful time in my life, but to reminisce is to relive and to treasure what is lost in all its excellence. The frost of winter however, must inevitably be followed by the spring of 200 days no garfield.

When 100 days no garfield times are done, must the stars also go out?

But isn't so much journalism nowadays characterised by unsubstantiated speculation? (i.e. propaganda, if not simply clickbait filler pretending analysis)

It seems to me your criticism amounts essentially to your dislike of the thesis of this piece. This can be legitimate, but not what you've argued here.

Isn't this piece an example of precisely the supposed promise of the internet, in the sense that journalism becomes democratised and anyone can publish and disseminate analysis, which can be evaluated on its merits rather than institutional validation and inertia based on opaque criteria? (I would of course argue the aggregated needs of capital, but I won't force that in)

I shit you not exactly this happened to me today in the grass touching place, I was listening to a guy take down neoliberalism, impeccably in my view, and was nodding along (yes, YES) and then he hit me with the: "I'm just angry that real good liberalism has been supplanted with neoliberalism." (paraphrase) WHAT THE FUCK (at this juncture Losurdo seemless co-existance of liberalism and slavery, founding fathers etc.)

Some of these people are so often allergic to the implications of their sometimes quite admirable critical thinking.

Makes you want to shake them and shout "don't you see how the one lays the groundwork for the other??" Follow through for fuck's sake. So frustrating

But I did get a good introduction what an exceptionally twisted piece of shit hayek actually was so eh

LE MASSE C'EST MOI

(fuck my french is ass, la foule??)

the thing I don't understand is how you manage to become critical enough to call yourself "unlearning economics", but not exploring other approaches in anything approaching depth.

Especially one so obviously opposed to everything he criticises.

what the fuck are you talking about

nooo im late

i gucking loved this thank you

European NATO allies have begun hitting 2% targets in recent years and there are heated debates about going way above that in multiple capitals.

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49198.htm

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-announces-turning-point-in-european-security-as-uk-set-to-increase-defence-spending-to-25-by-2030

I will note that in the UK case the situation described in the picture is particularly grotesque, if you consider the development of food bank statistics. The Trussel Trust distributed 3.1 million food parcels in 2023/2024, of these 1.1 million to children.

In 2008/2009 the number of parcels distributed was 26'000.

https://www.trusselltrust.org/news-and-blog/latest-stats/end-year-stats/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/382695/uk-foodbank-users/

nooo don't stop, this always makes me laugh

I should not have looked at that

rest in peace

This is good analysis, but begs the question: why the government has not and does not protect workers to the extent that it could/should? Who has an interest in weak workplace protections for workers?

If the government is bad on worker's rights it is because it is a government run by and for capitalists. The state is consistently instrumentalised by the capitalist class to hamstring labour's bargaining power to suppress wages to increase profits.

Basically that is to say: these laws are not archaic, they are in fact working as intended, the intent is simply not to support working people, it is to secure and grow profits.

edit: I just realised where this was posted, so perhaps I underestimate your familiarity with these points, but I'll leave it up anyway in case of curious third parties

i feel this one in my bones

beyond absurd

how is the demiurge these days

I'm afraid the political problem you describe is much deeper and more entrenched.

The class of aggregated economic interests that brought the western world the "centrist ditherers", as you describe them, are increasingly backing right wing politicians to divide and confuse discontent majorities, now that the social contract is in obvious and advancing decay around us, due to decades of aggressive privatisation of public goods like utilities, education, healthcare as well as related but also wider economic slowdown.

Ironically it was precisely this kind of "centrist ditherer" that spent the last half century destroying these public goods and therefore inflaming the social discontent, which capital must now fuel right wingers to quell.