Stickybuffalo.com

(Note: so, I wrote the rest of this post earlier in the day. Which only multiplied the disconcerting feeling when I returned home, and found that the storefront across the street which has been filling its windows with old clothes now has a sign up. And so for the time being, whenever I enter or leave my apartment, or stand in front of the living room window, I’m going to be confronted with a banner reading “FUTURE NO FUTURE.” Great.)

Is this the link of the week?

I think it may be. I found the whole thing fascinating, in any event. Others may not, and I admit that I’m pretty terrible about being directed to something and then thinking “this is too long, what’s the executive summary?” So I’ll pull out a few key items:

“…cuts are just a sideshow, a diversion from the main event. They’ll keep rolling on and on and on, because the simple truth is that wealth is being extracted from society at an ever faster rate.” Yes, this does seem to be one of our era’s big, largely-unrecognized patterns.

“If America can reform its banking sector, it has a fighting chance at a prosperous future. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t… without the institutional reinvention of finance, America simply won’t be able to create the future, because it will keep investing in yesterday’s already overleveraged, zero-social-return ‘ponziconomy.’”

“…consider the Irish Bankers’ Strikes of the 1970s, when fed-up bankers petulantly decided to go on strike (with the assumption that the economy would collapse, and society would beg to have them back). Instead, the economy kept growing…”

“…the ‘instability’ that is the heart of Wall Street’s scare tactics is in fact already upon us, savagely so.”

“…the Dutch just digitally self-organized to force their parliament to axe bankers’ bonuses. Not just going forward, but retroactively… using technology invented in the U.S.A….” Once again, if only Americans were not so ignorant, and to some extent determined to remain ignorant, of what happens in other societies. If only.

Also, re-reading the interview, it seems like a great many of these comments can be applied to the energy industry as well, probably not coincidentally.

P.S. While I’m at it, “Constitutionally Rotten” isn’t bad, either. Will Wilkinson has one of his good days, doing an admirable summary of a Fareed Zakaria essay rather as I’ve done here with the remarks of Umair Haque. (See also.)

P.P.S. This is rather pithy, as well. And while there’s nothing at all really new, I may as well throw in this while I’m at it. Meanwhile, assuming that I don’t just drink myself to death before I even make it that far, after I get back from France I think I’m going to just stay in bed curled up into a fetal ball for several days.

Busy. Lots of work, leaving for a trip to Europe a week from Friday, stuff to do. So naturally I’m going to post a bunch of links here.

So you can experience “a day on the world wide web with Matt.”

Okay, this first one I actually read yesterday, and it was posted last week, but “Lessons of the Montreal Protocol for Climate Policy” is still interesting. The thing is, I’m not entirely sure what the point of this list is. It mostly seems to be things which advocates of environmental protections were aware of, and would certainly like to act on, but don’t seem to have a clear path to doing so. e.g., “It is important that the science not be politicized.” Great, how? Arguably, this list seems like it would be of more benefit to industrialists who want to block environmental activism, and could use this as a step-by-step guide. (Assuming that said industrialists elect to disregard the second item on the list, which is probably safe to assume.)

Lot of stuff from NPR.org and The Economist, of course, since those are major sources for me. I’ve almost wanted to avoid NPR out of embarrassment at their farcical self-directed inquisition following that latest idiotic “sting;” would that they applied such aggression to other subjects. But for all that, the site has been producing a lot of good material of late.

For example, this morning the politics blog posted an informative update on the battle over congressional redistricting. (more…)

FYI: Posting from me (i.e., the entire blog) may slow down for a while, beginning tomorrow, while I’m putting in some time at my second non-job for a week or three.

Before that, however: um, whoa. The balloon has gone up, just about, hasn’t it? I’m going to withhold further comment about this, for now; I expect this story will be with us for some time anyway.

In the meantime, I’m posting all the same because yesterday’s apparent assassination attempt was by no means the only surprising bit of news to reach me in the past 24 hours. And possibly, not even the most significant. Other unexpected findings?

Another reminder of why I read Britain’s The Independent: to get an update on what’s going on in my own frickin’ country’s legislature. If you’ve been wondering what happened with Senate reform, too, have a look. (Hint: it has not gone away again yet, at least.)

The 7-9 Seattle Seahawks upset New Orleans in the NFL playoffs; relatively-trivial, yes, but still fascinating. That 67-yard slog by Marshawn Lynch, in particular, was just astounding. “Get thee behind me, tacklers.”

And then just to really baffle me, the Times has this article about how even a law degree is apparently a ticket to little more than enormous debt and a job at Home Depot, these days. (So, anyone who earned one of those degrees and then decided to detour into library science instead, that may have been just as well?) (more…)