In fact, Smith used the phrase “invisible hand” only once in The Wealth of Nations, to describe whether merchants invest their capital at home or abroad – and not, as Friedman claimed, as a general theory of markets.
This being of great interest as we mull taxing wealth. Will people invest at home or abroad if we tax the result of having invested at home more?
This seems entirely unremarkable to me:
Every year, the German Bookshop prize, awarded on behalf of the federal government’s commissioner for culture and the media, serves as a financial injection for more than 100 independent, owner-managed bookshops all over Germany. An independent jury selects the winners, based on criteria such as carefully curated literary selection and cultural events. Usually, the public doesn’t take much notice of the prize; its weight on the public purse is barely significant. But for small bookshops operating on narrow margins, the prize money of between €7,000 and €25,000 makes a tangible difference.
This year, for the first time, three bookshops disappeared from the jury’s list, according to an investigation by the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The ministry of culture deleted them, due to “information of relevance to the domestic intelligence agency”, it states. What kind of information? Nobody knows, not even Germany’s commissioner for culture himself, since the domestic intelligence agency (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) is not allowed to divulge it. A quick look at the three bookshops is telling: they are antifascist, they are proud of it and they are institutions in their communities.
If politics feeds money into something then which something gets money fed into it will be determined by politics.
Shrug.
There never will be – cannot be – non-political spending of money by politics. Which means by taxes. So, you attach to the State Teat then the milk you gain will be determined by politics.
Shrug.
It’s one of the grand joys of free markets – no politics.
Now a New York-based literary agent, Romero owns an Amazon Kindle, which is roughly the same size as a mass-market paperback but can store thousands of books rather than one. Still, she feels that something is being lost. “Whether it was the ink or the paper, they had a certain smell and it’s very nostalgic to me and many others.
“We’re definitely losing accessibility and that’s a huge thing right now, especially in this country, whether it’s libraries being defunded, book bannings happening, one person saying let’s get rid of 200 books because I don’t want my child to read diverse authors.
“At the same time when you’re looking, for example, at kid lit, a 14- or 15-year-old is not going to be able to buy maybe a $19.99 or $21.99 hardcover YA book, especially if they’re working a minimum-wage or babysitting job, so it becomes fully inaccessible whereas they could have just gone and picked something up like a mass-market paperback. That affordability was huge. It’s sad to see.”
As our own Bloke on M4 has been known to note, the Kindle – and the like – has massively increased availability.
$50 gets you access to more free stuff than you can read in a lifetime. Sure, much of it won’t be all that good. But then nor were many of the mass market paperbacks any good…..
Otto has an excellent idea:
July 26th 2008
“Met Scarlett J. yesterday while visiting her set. She thanked me for introducing her to Ottokring. She said he was “a stud” and “took me to heaven” but it could never be as he has his worldwide tech empire to manage 🙁 Besides, he has his own sex island, so I am told.
Mandy called, said he’d some boring doc from something called the Treasury for me. Yawnsville.”
A quickie book of the emails that should exist. Eppie himself would be a Pooterish character, taking responsibility for everything that happened. Advising Biden Jr to take art lessons say. Matching him up with Mondrian for lessons or summat. Etc etc.
The difficulty would be creating 300 such jokes to fill up a book. They’d all have to be of people famous now but around two decades back too. Ginnie asking, through Eppie, Monica for the details of the cigar trick as Bill has this strange request (it’s not actually lit when, is it? Or perhaps complaining that it was lit).
300 such jokes is a tall order. Think we can pull it off?
Writers’ retreats. Where you go off and work on that novel.
The Old Chapel in Llanfrynach is £487 for three nights. Urban Writers’ Retreat has rooms from £415 for three nights. Acorn Writing Retreats’ all-inclusive rates are £525 for three days, £675 for four (the Acorn Access Fund offers discounts for marginalised and low-income writers). Rewrite in East Sussex from £1,700 for five nights. Starcroft Farm cabins £320 for a two-night independent writing break and £750 for a four-night small-group retreat with coaching, massage and other extras (the writer was given one night’s stay for this article)
Ain’t that all sucking money off the deluded. 98% of writers will never make back even one three day stay from their book (I know, this, sorry). And an actual writer’s retreat is turn the phone off and hide in the attic.
Sheesh.
David Walliams has been dropped by his publisher following an investigation by The Telegraph into inappropriate behaviour towards young women.
I grasp the idea of attraction to publishing totty. Publishing is where the posh totty goes and it’s entirely possible to have a taste for posh totty. Fine.
But a rich man, a famous man (the second probably of more importance) with a known ability to be witty at least at times. He’s up to his kneecaps in poon anyway. Why chase those who work – even if indirectly – for you?
Seriously, attend a publishers’ party, drink half a glass of warm white wine and take one’s pick of the bodyslam of clunge voluntarily on offer. Groupies are not just for rock bands after all.
Why?
(No, I am not rich or famous enough for this to be true of me. But sufficiently fringe to such events to know this)
Peter Francis, a former Metropolitan Police Special Branch officer whose whistleblowing exposed the existence and practices of the Special Demonstration Squad, told an inquiry that he had visited a graveyard on instruction from a senior officer.
It was “standard practice” in the squad to use the identity of a dead child to create a plausible cover story, but different officers had different methods of identifying possible dead children, the undercover policing inquiry in central London heard. One senior officer advised Francis that he should visit a graveyard to look for dead children whose names and birth certificates he could use.
Yanis Varoufakis, the firebrand economist who rose to fame at the height of Greece’s debt drama, was not only egotistical but ultimately more interested in testing out his game theories on the nation than winning its battle to keep afloat.
So writes the former prime minister Alexis Tsipras in his newly released memoir, Ithaki, as the once radical leftwing leader, sparing no punches, seeks, 10 years later, to put the record straight.
“He was, in reality, more of a celebrity and less of an economist,” recalled the 51-year-old, who described handpicking the maverick as his finance minister because of his international reputation and “extremely attractive” skills as a public orator.
“I wanted to send the message of hard negotiation, but I underestimated the human factor. Very quickly, Varoufakis turned from being an asset into a negative protagonist. Not only could our potential allies not stand him, neither could his own colleagues.”
TBH I’ver never seen much in Varoufakis’ economic policies or ideas other than “to be against”. Everyone’s doing it all wrong but with that absence of any concrete ideas for doing it otherise.
But while sounding like the plot of one of Richard Osman’s supermarket bestsellers — plucky neighbours form a hilarious protest group in the name of good old English values
Osman’s writing the novelisations of Boulting Brothers scripts then. Titfield Thunderbolt, Passport to Pimlico.
Not that I’m going to read one or anything but nice to know all the same.
These missions are sadly undermined by the authors’ inability to express Big Thoughts, or indeed to have any thoughts longer than half a paragraph. The text veers between a rather glib, non-chronological narrative covering two decades of politics, strings of non-sequiturs, mentions of “popular politics books I’ve read” or “YouTube videos that might be relevant”, Noël Coward quotes and, peppered between, some observations on the value of eccentric traditions.
So, Anthropic now has to pay $3k per book they ripped off to train Claude (??).
A very incomplete search seems to show 3 of mine and 3 of my sister’s.
Which would be fun, no?
Now the game is to find out how to collect…..
The secret British history of South America
In Small Earthquakes, Shafik Meghji uncovers Britain’s forgotten connections with Latin America, from Welsh tea rooms to red phone boxes
Minha Tresavo (so, avo, grandfather, tres, great great grand, so my great great grandfather) is buried up at La Oroya in Peru. There’s a little Anglican church and an English graveyard. The railways of South America were built by the British, largely enough, he was one of the engineers on the suspension bridge there.
And then Mexico still makes pasties, brought over by the Cornish tin miners. They were, at the time, the world’s finest hard rock miners and so were hired all around….
Dame Emma Thompson has said that sex should be recommended by the NHS.
The Academy Award-winning actress explained sex is “so good for you” as she also revealed her friends had started to hire escorts after realising how integral it was to their health and wellbeing.”
“You need sex because it’s part of our health plan, if you like,” Dame Emma said, adding: “It should really be on the NHS. It should. It’s so good for you.”
She added: “We need to learn about our own response to: ‘What if when you’re unwell, you can’t make connections, but you need sex?’”
Dame Emma, 66, speaking at a screening of her 2022 film Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, also called for the stigma around the topic of sex workers to be addressed.
The film, which sees the actress portray a retired schoolteacher who hires a young sex worker, had inspired her friends, MailOnline reported.
Remarkable how her views are so directly aligned with the story of the movie, eh? Just astonishing.
There’s a very good Alan Coren column from back in the day on this. Sex on the NHS. Very funny. Think it’s in the Omnibus – which is, of course, a book everyone should have. If you don’t you must get it.
Go-to author on White House reverses take on Biden and slams former president
Chris Whipple’s third book, Uncharted, hits Biden and aides like a bludgeon, with key sources who speak on the record
At the time of the last book there was money to be made by claiming Biden was really sharp, energetic and raring to go for a second term.
Today there’s money to be made by explaining that he wasn’t.
You know, American politics, White House, “follow the money”?
The James Bond franchise will no longer be controlled by Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson, its long-time custodians, after they handed creative control to Amazon.
Members of the Broccoli family have controlled the franchise since the first 007 film, Dr No, in 1962. Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman bought the rights to Ian Fleming’s spy novels in 1961 and set up the British studio Eon Productions, in London.
But on Thursday, the Broccoli family and Amazon MGM Studios said they had “formed a new joint venture to house the James Bond intellectual property rights, and those parties will remain co-owners of the franchise”.
A statement added: “Under the terms of the new venture, Amazon MGM Studios will gain creative control of the James Bond franchise following closing of the transaction.”
And it’s going to be worse than the recent films, is it?
the way in which electoral systems devalue the votes of people who live in densely populated areas.
Constituencies are deliberately weighted by total population size.
But, then, Ash Sarkar, right?
