At some level, the rise of private equity and private credit and “alternative asset management” generally is about shifting ownership of the economy to vehicles that charge more fees.[2] You can own a share of all of the public companies for about 0.04%, which is not enough. But John Coates estimates that “now private equity controls between 15% and 20% of the entire U.S. economy,” and if you want to own your share of that slice of the economy, you’re paying more like 2% (plus 20% of profits). If you want to own your share of SpaceX — an outsized contributor to future economic growth, if you believe Elon Musk’s vision — you’ll pay even more. Similarly, private credit funds roughly compete with high-yield bonds, but are harder to index and can charge more.

One of the great things about clear-eyed business coverage—like @matt-levine.bsky.social—is that it explains capitalist behavior in ways that are about structures of possibility. We love to put names and faces to the rapacity, but regulation requires impersonality, too.

"We want to give every American the chance to experience what our brave mortal soldiers do. Endless concussions, followed by TBI, erratic behavior, spontaneous violence, an invitation to the White House on January 6, conviction, pardon, recidivism. A great American story."

He’s got my vote!

Someone please replace that with the geometric version of Loss. tyvm

HUNGRY | Official Trailer YouTube video by Aura Entertainment

Looks like they're saving that for the sequel
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX85...

I still prefer it to the car with the license plate frame that says "You just got passed by a Barb!"

Silver car bumper with greenish yellow bumper sticker saying “keep honking I’m listening to geese”

Industry psyop, neighborhood edition

In other news I am suing the Atlantic for $4300 but just the Badlantic parts

Anybody got that post where AI Viktor Orbán and Tung Tung Tung Sahur are hugging and crying?

GLASS CANDY "ETHERIC DEVICE" YouTube video by Italians Do It Better Music

Real Glass Candy hours on the coast
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJI1...

declining hegemon. Autocorrected. But I ain't taking it down and retyping all that alt text

An X-the-everything-app post from Luke Gromen "UAE to Trump Administration 'You started this war; if we run short of USDs ass a result of it, either you will give us USD swap lines, or we will be forced to start transacting oil and gas in CNY and other currencies" —WSJ, just now Via @ces921 There follows a clip from the Journal "But they have also agreed that it was President Trump's decision to attack Iran that entangled their country in a destructive conflict whose effects may not be over, some of the officials said. Emirati officials told the U.S. officials that if the U.A.E. runs short of dollars, it may be forced to use Chinese yuan or other countries' currencies for oil sales and other transaction, some of the officials said. In that scenario is an implicit threat to the U.S. dollar, which reigns supreme among global currencies partially because of its near-exclusive use in oil transactions.

Pissing off sophisticated financial centers to make sure de-dollarization proceeds smoothly, rapidly, and with even worse unintended consequences for the declining hegemony

If there were ever a man who should be sentenced to live in Ballard's High Rise

With James Woods as the attack Rhea

Congrats to you and Mrs. Harmers

An Eames lounge chair with an articulated computer keyboard and mouse arm where your lap would be

Eric Adams may be gone, but he lives on in my brain:
"May your Eames chair be your games chair in the man cave of success"
www.custompc.com/gaming-pc-se...

Anybody got that post where AI Viktor Orbán and Tung Tung Tung Sahur are hugging and crying?

"Mitt oudt sound" may still be mythical, but this is the earliest specific origin story I have seen from someone who is taking credit for being there at the creation.

I'll have to get a better grab of the journal on campus—my online searches haven't worked; skill issue. I should dig up more contemporaneous accounts of Korda on the set of "Women Everywhere" and "The Plumber and the Princess." And at any point this version might fall apart.

and if "mit ohne" (or "mitt oudt") *is* the origin, it will have to come from someone with the clout and career to spread it around. Kirbach worked all over town, on big productions—like this Lillian Russell biopic, Letter to Three Wives, etc.

like "mitt w/2 sound" 4. It combines the fun vernacular version with the technical version. Lots of sound people object to "mit ohne" because, they believe, professionals wouldn't adopt that when there were technical reasons to prefer "motor-only sound." But Kirbach was an important technician

Korda was Hungarian, not German, so the transcription here is phonetic, not linguistic as in the "mit ohne," version. 3. The phonetic specificity helps explain why the tale would spread but the origin would be lost. You only find it if you are looking for "mitt oudt" or using old search operators.

This version is *still* publicity, so that makes it dubious. Its advantages are: 1. The timing works: Korda and Kirbach worked together on two Fox films in 1930, so it jibes with the "early sound era" framing. 2. It is specific: not "a German" or (in other tellings) "a Jewish director," but Korda

A very poor Google books screen grab from Screen Book Magazine Combined with Screen Play, 1940, p76. The key part "Hey," yelled Arthur von Kirbahc, a sound technician. "I thought this was supposed to be a 'MOS' shot!" "MOS" in Hollywood means a shot without sound. A number of years ago when von Kirbach was working with Alexander Korda he asked Korda if a certain shot was to be made without sound. "Yah," Korda replied in his broken Eng- The column text cuts off there.

continuation of the bad google books screen grab; the relevant portion Some of the copyrighted cartoon is visible left. Right lish "mitt oudt sound." MOS mitt oudt sound—it's been ever since.

In a Screen Book article on Fox's Lillian Russell biopic from 1940, sound man Arthur von Kirbach asks if a shot is MOS. The piece—"Lillian Russell, the Gal with a Male Harem"—gives the origin: Kirbach was working with Alexander Korda, asked the same question, and Korda said, "Yah, mitt oudt sound."

The first refers to the old sound recording tech where a selsyn motor would keep camera and the audio medium in sync. The second is part of a myth that a director of German extraction being vernacular or malaproppy. Decades of debate. I think I've made some progress.
filmsound.org/terminology/...

One of the minor but enduring mysteries of cinema history is the origin of the term "MOS" which is used for shots taken without sound. The wiki does a nice job of capturing the basic debate: "motor-only shot" vs. "mit ohne sound."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_(fi...

An email from Starbuck promoting ChatGPT integration in the app. You can ask it what you should order. The rectangle is green, the drink is green with chunks of goop in it and a light purple foam "Iced Lavender Cream Matcha" The Starbucks and ChatGPT logos appear. Below the drink it says "Your next drink idea is just a chat away. Discover, customize and add to cart right in the ChatGPT app. It’s a fun and easy way to find whatever you’re looking for."

"I'll take a venti matcha, extra tampons, elmer's glue swirl"

At that point he becomes Donnie Skyline. He thinks it’s because he’s a builder, but it’s because of the chili

They called him Donny Two Times. He got that nickname because he said things two times. Then the dementia got worse and by the midterms he was Donnie Triples

Baudrillard wrote that the shock of 9/11 was not that it was unthinkable, but that it was the ultimate object of the American fantasy and the shock was having the fantasy realized it. This is how I feel on seeing the post "Mr. Met is an antisemite," towards which we have always been headed.