Wednesday, March 14, 2018

The House Speaker has his limits

Norman Mailer's library: On the shelf: Dostoyevsky, Proust, Graham Greene, and two sets of the Warren Commission Report. In the bathroom: poetry anthologies  poetry 

The House Speaker has his limits PAUL RYAN, WHO TOLERATED TRUMP’S NAZI EMBRACE 
AND F.B.I. LOYALTY PLEDGE, BALKS AT TARIFFS.


As Tom Wolfe wrote, paraphrasing the late German intellectual Gunter Grass, “You American intellectuals—you want so desperately to feel besieged and persecuted!”
Is Trump the New Clinton? The Baffler. Chinese “meddling.” In 1996. Supporting Bill Clinton.
The Intel Community Lie About Russian Meddling by Publius Tacitus Sic Semper Tyrannis. About those 17 agencies…


A little late, isn’t she? In early 2009, a publication then-owned by the Washington Post assured me that we were already all socialist
Forbes – The IMRICH Billionaires 2018
Meet The Members Of The Three-Comma Club “Capitalism’s global conquest continues as entrepreneurs around the globe mint fortunes in everything from cryptocurrencies to telecom to bridal dresses. Forbes has pinned down a record 2,208 billionaires from 72 countries and territories including the first ever from Hungary and Zimbabwe. This elite group is worth $9.1 trillion, up 18% since last year. Their average net worth is a record $4.1 billion. Americans lead the way with a record 585 billionaires, followed by mainland China with 373. Centi-billionaire Jeff Bezos secures the list’s top spot for the first time, becoming the only person to appear in the Forbes ranks with a 12-figure fortune. Bezos’s fortune leapt more than $39 billion, the list’s biggest one-year gain ever. He moves ahead of Bill Gates, who is now number 2. It is the biggest gap between no. 1 and 2 since 2001. Bernard Arnault, with a fortune of $72 billion, reclaims the title of richest European for the first time since 2012. There are 259 newcomers including the first ever cryptocurrency billionaires; two Canadians whose toy company is behind Hatchimals and PAW Patrol; two Americans who founded online retailer Wayfair; and a 35-year-old heiress who runs In-N-Out Burger. Even in such a strong year, 121 dropped out due to falling fortunes or political headwinds, including all 10 Saudi Arabians. Click here for more on Forbes methodology, credits and acknowledgments.”

Donald Trump to exempt Australia from steel, aluminium tariffs   

Bureau of Meteorology staff investigated in AFP cryptocurrency probe

 

Shorten backs Wayne Swan for ALP presidency 

 



That is the new and excellent Sendhil Mullainathan NYT column, here is one excerpt from many good points:

Corporate success has similar consequences: Women who become chief executives divorce at higher rates than others.
Another study found that the same is true in Hollywood: Winning the best actress Oscar portends a divorce, while winning the best actor award does not.
Of course, the divorce itself may be a preferred outcome, one that is better than enduring a poisonous relationship. Even then, I’d argue that the tax was exacted in the emotional toll and the time lost in a failed marriage.
Men react particularly negatively to their spouses’ relative success. Marianne Bertrand and Emir Kamenica, economists at the University of Chicago, and Jessica Pan, an economist at the National University of Singapore, examined the wages of spouses. Because women generally earn less in the work force, they generally earn less than their husbands, too.

 REALCLEARINVESTIGATIONS: U.S. Media Long Carried Putin’s Water – Odd Given Today’s Hysteria. “In 2007, state-owned publisher Rossiyskaya Gazeta launched Russia Beyond the Headlines, a multi-page full-color broadsheet laid out just like a newspaper and distributed, typically monthly, as an insert by some of the most prestigious names in newspaper publishing, including London’s Daily Telegraph, Le Figaro in France and the Italian daily La Repubblica, reaching an audience estimated at nearly 6.5 million readers. In the United States, the Russian-state media entity partnered with the Washington Post until 2015 and with the New York Times, which confirmed it still bundles the insert into its regular paper. . . . Russia Beyond paints a picture of a normal country, with normal concerns, including reviews of Moscow’s trendy restaurants and reports from the latest ComiCon. The Russia depicted in its pages isn’t working with Iran and the Syrian regime to slaughter civilians and gas children. Rather, it’s a global actor in good standing, whose citizens don’t understand why the United States and European Union placed sanctions on their country in response to the invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. It serves not only Russian national interests, but also the personal power plays of President Vladimir Putin.”

What is more surprising in the data is that it is far more common for the husband to earn just a tiny bit more than the wife than the other way around. The fact that women on average earn less does not account for such a sharp asymmetry.
Posted by at