From The Huffington Post:
Fallon and The Roots were joined by much of the cast of "The Force Awakens," including Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, Gwendoline Christie, Lupita Nyong'o, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford for an a cappella tribute to "Star Wars."
You can see the clip at the link above.
I have my tickets for Christmas Eve. Reviews from friends sound positive. Thank goodness.
22 December 2015
There is a fantastic "review" of economist Thomas Piketty's amazing work Capital in the Twenty-First Century. I say "review" because it is not so much a review of the book -- or only of the book -- itself, but rather a review of the state of discourse about its core focus and conclusions. The book itself, while amazing, is a bit of a slog, but well worth it. So, too, is this writing at TPM. Its most important and, I believe its most correct, point is quoted below.
The question of whether our road leads to Piketty (2014)—a new Belle Époque plutocracy—or Keynes (1936)—a euthanization of the rentier in which the wealth of the rich is outlandish but their incomes are not due to low rates of profit—hinges on our politics. And our politics is something we can control.
We as a civilization could decide that we are not willing to let money talk so loudly in politics. We could keep our politics from being one of establishing monopoly after monopoly and rent-extraction chokepoint after rent-extraction chokepoint. If we manage that, then the forecasts of Keynes (1936) and Rognlie (2015 will come true, and a rise in wealth accumulation will carry with it a fall in the rate of profit, and a highly-productive not-too-unequal society.
But right now money talks very loudly indeed. And I leave the Piketty debate more depressed about our ability to keep it from talking so loudly. What makes me more depressed? The Piketty debate itself does: The eagerness of so-many economists to aggressively make so many shoddy arguments that Piketty does not know what he is talking about.
22 December 2015
And the park is the earth. From The Huffington Post:
SpaceX made history Monday night when it successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket into orbit, deployed 11 satellites, and then brought the 15-story booster back to Earth for a soft, vertical landing just six miles from where it took off at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
This is a first and for the future of space travel it is HUGE. Truly.
22 December 2015
A new study on mortality in America by two Princeton University scholars paints a relatively bleak picture for white Americans, or at least for a large slice of this group. Josh Marshall at TPM provides background on the study and then ties it to our current political reality in the country, a reality that has been forming for some time. It is a fascinating read and I encourage you to take the time to do so.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but on a micro level it does help to explain the Trump phenomenon. If true, we are in for an even bumpier ride than I'd previously believed.
1 December 2015
2 December 2015 Addition: Further breakdown of the numbers from the study.
