Archive (Page 17) • Schooling in Socialist America • Buttondown

Big picture update

June 18, 2020

I haven’t done a finance update in a bit, but I got a chance to listen to my favorite econ podcast while changing Thisbe — have to stand and leave her on the...

Two rallies

June 10, 2020

Thinking about the word 'rally' this week. On the one hand, there have been historic marches and rallies (and successful direct actions) on police brutality...

Two demands in real estate

May 25, 2020

A communist graffiti artist is on an amazing rampage in our neighborhood. Here’s a building project happening around the corner from us that I took on a...

The US is not a failed state

May 11, 2020

Apologies for the lateness of this post. My partner gave birth last Thursday to a tiny human named Thisbe Gilbert Ronen-Backer, and I’ve been accordingly...

Finance-speak and oppression

May 5, 2020

Something else about the business news, finance, market discourses I've been thinking about. This discourse is clearly a ruling class discourse. But what...

The threat of bankruptcy

May 1, 2020

Happy May 1. What a time to celebrate international workers’ day. In honor of the day, I figured I’d continue a wonky project focusing on some numbers for...

Data confusion

April 29, 2020

Once again I have to recommend Econoday Unplugged for straight talk when it comes to the economy. It’s just a soft-spoken American guy who stutters a bit and...

Schools are not a loan

April 26, 2020

On April 23rd, the School District of Philadelphia announced that there will be a $1 billion shortfall in its budget over the next five years due to the...

Illyrian economics

April 24, 2020

Things are heating up. I got to the part in Joanna Bockman’s Markets in the Name of Socialism where she describes the basic outline of Yugoslavia’s socialist...

My sweet inflatable you

April 22, 2020

One of the bigger ‘destabilizing’ forces in economy is when prices of everything goes up or down. If the price of stuff goes up (inflates), then money...

Towards a socialist finance, part 2

April 20, 2020

In trying to craft some socialist concepts of finance, I’ve been reading about the history and theory of socialist economics in the 20th century. Right now...

Class struggle content

April 18, 2020

As much as I’ve been on a tare about finance, I’ve been watching some pretty awesome class struggle content on television. By which I mean streaming on my...

Response to Grace Blakely

April 17, 2020

This review by Grace Blakely crafts a good slogan about 'breaking the power of finance', but a couple things stand out to me: 1. 'Finance' isn't necessarily...

Is there a housing crisis?

April 17, 2020

I keep seeing headlines about possible housing crises in the pandemic. I decided to do a little meander around some housing indicators to see if one’s...

Are the testing numbers real?

April 16, 2020

So much of what’s happening in finance capitalism right now depends on whether it looks like the pandemic is stopping. The ruling class has eyes glued on...

Capital's Achilles heel?

April 15, 2020

I was almost right! Sort of. I’d had an instinct that the dollar swaps the Fed was doing with 20 international banks had something to do with inflation. I...

Gimme some muni

April 14, 2020

One of the historic things about the Fed’s pesach miracle was its entrance in muni markets: it committed to buying $500 billion of municipal bonds. ‘Munis’...

A capitalist dilemma

April 13, 2020

If you want to hear some capitalists going at it over one of the biggest questions for capitalism right now, listen to this Squawk on the Street podcast...

Towards a socialist finance

April 12, 2020

From the article “Concrete Utopia,” on Yugoslavian Architecture.I’m trying to understand finance as a socialist. The pandemic is a good opportunity because...

What the Fed did on Thursday

April 11, 2020

It was a pesach miracle. The Fed decided to initiate another program of $2.3 trillion, boldly buying credit it has never bought before (specifically junk...