July 29, 2022
Friday, July 29, 2022
Thomas Piketty: "Capital and Ideology"
Few academic books ever become bestsellers, and even fewer dramatically change global political discussions. Prof. Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century (2013) did both. The book traced the history of income and wealth inequality in the developed world, arguing that inequality is an important feature – and not an accident- of capitalism. Most importantly, his work brought economic inequality back to the centre of political discussion. It was an honour to have Professor Piketty join us for the second time at Room for Discussion! This time the topic of the interview was his newest book: Capital and Ideology (2019). In this new work, he argues from a historical and global perspective that inequality is not economic or technological, it is ideological and political. As such, it is fundamentally founded in the battle of ideas. The interview discusses these views and more, offering a short but insightful summary of over 1000 pages of Piketty's craft.
•Mar 4, 2020
VERGECAST
Yay! O Yay!
Vergecast: Instagram’s risky week and Big Tech earnings
The flagship podcast of infinite scrolling video
Every Wednesday and Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where our editors make sense of the week’s most important technology news. On Fridays, Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel, editor-at-large David Pierce, and managing editor Alex Cranz discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories.
The show starts with the biggest news from the week — Instagram and the controversy around the changes to its app. On our Wednesday show, we discussed Instagram head Adam Mosseri’s response to criticism of the changes and overall direction to make the app feel more like its competitor TikTok. The following day, Instagram walked back its changes, with Mosseri saying “we definitely need to take a big step back and regroup.” Today’s episode walks through the whole story.
The rest of the show focuses on the quarterly earnings of some big tech companies — Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Spotify, and Comcast — and what that info may mean for their future products.
Listen here or in your preferred podcast player for the full discussion.
Stories discussed in this episode:
- Meta and Apple in ‘deep’ competition to build the metaverse, Mark Zuckerberg tells staff
- Yes, it’s weird for the two-year-old Meta Quest 2 to go up in price
- Meta might let anti-vax posts back onto Facebook and Instagram
- Instagram walks back its changes
- Microsoft Q4 2022 earnings: Xbox and Windows fall in $51.9 billion quarter
- Meta reports revenue decline for the first time in Q2 earnings
- Here’s where to buy the Meta Quest 2 before it costs $100 more
- Alphabet Q2 2022 earnings show profits dropped compared to last year
- Comcast’s broadband business stopped growing for the first time ever
- Spotify’s subscribers rise to 188M amid podcasting setbacks
- Spotify amps up fiction podcasts with new leader of scripted content
- Spotify paid $123 million for audiobook company Findaway
- Spotify has stopped making its Car Thing dashboard accessory
- Apple’s latest iOS 16 beta ensures you can’t hide your mistakes with an edit
- Apple’s new Home app in iOS 16 is better but still half-baked
- SpaceX says Dish’s 5G plan would be ‘detrimental’ to millions of Starlink users
- You can rewatch Game of Thrones in 4K on HBO Max next month
- President Joe Biden’s video conferencing setup starts with a $7,000 Zoom gadget
- Asus’ compact Zenfone 9 comes with incredible gimbal-like camera stabilization
UPDATES: Space News
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Saltzman tapped to succeed Raymond as chief of the U.S. Space Force
Lt. Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, U.S. Space Force deputy chief of space operations, speaking at the 2022 GEOINT Symposium. Credit: U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation
If confirmed by the Senate, Saltzman will replace Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, who is retiring after 38 years of service
WASHINGTON — President Biden has nominated Lt. Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, currently serving as U.S. Space Force deputy chief of operations, for promotion to four-star general, and selected him to lead the Space Force as chief of space operations.
The White House on July 27 submitted Saltzman’s nomination to the Senate and it will be referred to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
If confirmed by the Senate, Saltzman will succeed Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, who is retiring after 38 years of service. Raymond was the first chief of the military space branch established in December 2019. The chief of space operations is a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The Space Force is an independent military service under the Department of the Air Force. It has nearly 8,000 uniformed members known as guardians, and about an equal number of civilian employees charged with operating and protecting the U.S. military’s satellites and supporting systems.
Saltzman served most of his military career in the U.S. Air Force and commanded coalition air forces in the Middle East before transferring to the Space Force in 2020 where he has overall responsibility for operations, intelligence, sustainment, cyber and nuclear operations.
According to multiple sources,
Raymond strongly supported the selection of Saltzman as his successor.
Other candidates on the short list included Lt. Gen. Stephen Whiting,
commander of the Space Force’s Space Operations Command; and Lt. Gen.
John Shaw, deputy commander of U.S. Space Command.
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CommercialMasten Space Systems files for bankruptcy
Masten Space Systems, a company developing a lunar lander for a NASA mission, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy July 28 with plans to sell one of its major assets to a competitor.
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ASU 2021 Economic Forecast: Just now wrong was it Huh??
Yup it's that time of the year again for all kinds of different Economic Forecasts for next year. Needless to say there's more than a few divergent opinions out out there for public consumption, so let's see what's out there:
1. From the Arizona Republic looks like this:
1. Re-published in the Rose Law Group Reporter looks like this
By Russ Wiles | Arizona Republic
Arizona’s economic recovery isn’t painless, and certain sectors — lodging, restaurants and entertainment in particular — could continue to struggle.
As Arizona State University forecasters see it, 2021 will mark a return to near normalcy for the state and national economies — assuming a vaccine next year stems the COVID-19 outbreak and Congress adopts a stimulus package to keep the rebound on track.
The most telling sign of improvement: An eventual recovery in the number of overall statewide jobs lost during the pandemic as rising in-migration pushes Arizona’s population above 7.5 million sometime in 2021.
But it isn’t a painless recovery, with lingering reminders such as an increase in federal debt. Certain sectors — lodging, restaurants and entertainment in particular — could continue to struggle, and so might lower-income workers and others.
“We need about 100,000 (statewide) jobs to get us back to where we were when the downturn started,” said Lee McPheters, an ASU professor and director of the university’s JPMorgan Chase Economic Outlook Center.
Arizona should do better than that, adding about 115,000 net new jobs for a 4% growth rate by the end of 2021, he predicted. That scenario assumes one or more COVID-19 vaccines are widely distributed in the first half of the year and Congress comes through with a stimulus bill during that time frame.
2. . . . and another
ASU
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What's Up with Mohammed El-Erian...Take a look-and-listen
Here are some top stories and other information Mohamed Aly El-Erian is an Egyptian-American economist and businessman. He is President of Queens' College, Cambridge and chief economic adviser at Allianz, the corporate parent of PIMCO where he was CEO and co-chief investment officer
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Top Economist Issues Warning as US GDP Declines for 2nd Straight Quarter
0:003:09
A top U.S. economist issued a warning after a report Thursday showed the United States posted a second consecutive quarter of negative growth.
Gross domestic product fell at a 0.9 percent annualized rate last quarter, the federal government said. The country’s GDP contracted at a 1.6 percent pace in the first quarter.
Mohamed A. El-Erian, a former Obama administration official and the president of Queens’ College at the University of Cambridge, said the numbers show it’s “an economy that’s weakening at a much faster rate than most people expected.”
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“Inflation is not going to come down fast enough given how fast the economy is weakening and that’s going to put the Fed in the same dilemma it been in,” El-Erian told CNBC on Thursday morning. He added on Twitter that with an “unfavorable miss on jobless claims” combined with the negative GDP, there is a risk of “deepening stagflation and flashing red recession.”
While a second straight quarterly decline in GDP meets the standard definition of a recession, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the official arbiter of recessions in the United States defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in production, employment, real income, and other indicators.”
The White House has tried to downplay the GDP report and argued that the United States currently isn’t in a recession. President Joe Biden issued a statement Thursday saying that other economic indicators such as the job market and consumer spending are strong.
But squabbling over the definition of a recession, El-Erian said, is “not as interesting as we are weakening really fast” before concluding that “we’re not out of stagflationary forces yet.”
The Consumer Price Index, one of the metrics of inflation, rose 9.1 percent in June, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s the highest level since 1981.
Higher interest rates could bring down inflation, but such a reduction won’t happen quickly enough due to “how fast the economy is weakening,” he argued. The Federal Reserve, which raised interest rates by 75 basis points on Wednesday, is now in “a dilemma” about how to handle its monetary policy, the economist added.
“I hope [the Fed] focuses on putting the inflation genie back into the bottle. I think the worst outcome is that next year, we are in a recession and inflation has proven very sticky,” El-Erian continued.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Breaking News Reporter
Job growth averaged 456,700 per month in the first half of the year, which is generating strong wage gains. Still, the risks of a downturn have increased. Homebuilding and house sales have weakened while business and consumer sentiment have softened in recent months.
Top stories
Mohamed El-Erian says Fed should keep focus on inflation even with economy
'weakening really fast'
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El-Erian Says Fed's 'Zip Code' for Neutral at Least 50 Basis-Points Higher
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GDP decline shows the Fed is behind in inflation fight: Mohamed El-Erian
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Are Interest Rates at Neutral? Markets Certainly Hope So
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Duration: 4:04
Posted: 1 day ago
Posted: 1 day ago
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Flash News: Ukraine Intercepts Russian Kh-59 Cruise Missile Using US VAMPIRE Air Defense System Mounted on Boat. Ukrainian forces have made ...
