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Category Archives: Economy

Alexander Skarsgård Explains the Answer to Everything

The New York Times – (It Involves Doing Some Math – Opinion / Video) “Partha Dasgupta is a Cambridge University economist who in 2021 prepared a more than 600-page report for the British government about the financial value of nature. Not your average bedtime reading. But believe us when we say his report, the culmination of decades of scholarship, is incredibly important. Or at least believe the United Nations, which awarded him the title Champion of the Earth for his work. Or King Charles III, who this year made Mr. Dasgupta a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire — an extremely rare honor — for his services to economics and the natural environment. Mr. Dasgupta’s voluminous study [The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review] is so important, that we decided to publish a short film about it, the Opinion video above. To make his complex review digestible, the film employs old-timey cartoons, some cursing, a clip of Boris Johnson in a hard hat while dangling from a cable, a very apt soccer metaphor, a bit of Strauss and a title that could be viewed as an exaggeration. We even hired the Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgard to help simplify its concepts and convey why the report is, if not required reading for everyone, at least something everyone should know about…”

The Four Quadrants of American Politics

The Atlantic: “Control of the House of Representatives could teeter precariously for years as each party consolidates its dominance over mirror-image demographic strongholds. That’s the clearest conclusion of a new analysis of the demographic and economic characteristics of all 435 congressional districts, conducted by the Equity Research Institute at the University of Southern California in… Continue Reading

New report from OpenAI finds that higher-income jobs are most exposed to GPT

Working Paper – GPTs are GPTs: An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of Large Language Models, March 27, 2023. “We investigate the potential implications of large language models (LLMs), such as Generative Pre- trained Transformers (GPTs), on the U.S. labor market, focusing on the increased capabilities arising from LLM-powered software compared to… Continue Reading

Loose Monetary Policy and Financial Instability

Via NBER – Loose Monetary Policy and Financial Instability. Maximilian Grimm, Òscar Jordà, Moritz Schularick & Alan M. Taylor “Do periods of persistently loose monetary policy increase financial fragility and the likelihood of a financial crisis? This is a central question for policymakers, yet the literature does not provide systematic empirical evidence about this link… Continue Reading

Nearly 200 Other Banks Vulnerable To SVB-Style Collapse

Jiang, Erica Xuewei and Matvos, Gregor and Piskorski, Tomasz and Seru, Amit, Monetary Tightening and U.S. Bank Fragility in 2023: Mark-to-Market Losses and Uninsured Depositor Runs? (March 13, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4387676 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4387676 “We analyze U.S. banks’ asset exposure to a recent rise in the interest rates with implications for financial stability. The… Continue Reading

What Really Broke the Banks

The Atlantic – “The Fed, among others, is blameworthy. But the ultimate culprit is COVID-19…After COVID-19 hit the U.S., bank deposits soared. The pandemic-relief measures—including stimulus payments, expanded unemployment insurance, and Paycheck Protection Program funds—put more money in people’s hands, even as consumer spending fell. At the same time, businesses cut back sharply on spending… Continue Reading

American Library Association reports record number of demands to censor library books and materials in 2022

“The American Library Association (ALA) today released new data documenting 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources in 2022, the highest number of attempted book bans since ALA began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago [the 2022 data compiled by ALA represents only a snapshot of book censorship throughout… Continue Reading

Risk of ‘Industrial Capture’ Looms Over AI Revolution

FT.com: “There’s a colossal shift going on in artificial intelligence — but it’s not the one some may think. While advanced language-generating systems and chatbots have dominated news headlines, private AI companies have quietly entrenched their power. Recent developments mean that a handful of individuals and corporations now control much of the resources and knowledge… Continue Reading

2022 Fossil Fuel Finance Report

Banking on Climate Chaos – Any bank supporting any company that is expanding fossil fuels is driving climate chaos: “Fossil fuel financing from the world’s 60 largest banks has reached USD $4.6 trillion in the six years since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, with $742 billion in fossil fuel financing in 2021 alone. This… Continue Reading