I have this problem talking to historians about finance. I say “Banks produce almost all of our dollars” and they hear “Banks are the best!” Everything I say becomes normative.

100%. “They didn’t say it the way I told them to” and “why didn’t they publish /quote MEEEE” are typical presentations of a misunderstanding that somehow the media and journalists are there to support you. No love, it’s the other way around.

Wisdom

No worries!

Maybe? That’s the path I’m on, but I don’t really see yet how I affect the system

I think that’s right. When I listen to academics complain about journalists I wish for a little more empathy, and an appreciation that journalists also have a difficult and important job that they try to do well

Having worked in newsrooms I can tell you that reporters generally admire academics and are grateful to rely on them for analysis, which is why it’s so weird now to see that academics hold journalists in at best disdain and are livid they aren’t better at their jobs

DIE DA DIE DA DIE DA DIE DA DIE. DA.
DIE DA DIE DA DIE DA
ODER DIE DA
DIE DA DIE DA DIE DA DIE. DA.
DIE DA
NEIN. FREITAGS IST SIE NIE DA.

Oh we're talking early 90s German pop are we

Ist es die da, die da im Eingang steht
oder die da, die dir den Kopf verdreht
oder die da, die mit dem dicken Pulli an NEIN
das ist die Frau die Freitags nicht kann!

Here's what being a writer is like: I'm already wondering why the public library in Santa Clara County ordered only one ebook. There are almost two million people in Santa Clara County. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR SALES someone stop me

This is fun. I was looking for the Kirkus review of my book, and search instead revealed that the Santa Clara Public Library has ordered a copy, AND IT'S ALREADY CHECKED OUT

One of the hazards of having been an exchange student in rural Lower Saxony in 1993 is that I know multiple songs by Die Prinzen by heart and I didn't even want to www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX-k...

Stats you can eat!

If an offshore dollar is a eurodollar, is an offshore euro a euroeuro?

Lord Skidelsky obituary: leading historian of Keynes Historian and foremost authority on the British economist John Maynard Keynes who was founding chairman of the Social Market Foundation, dies aged 86

Very sorry to hear about this. Shortly after I finished reading his brilliant three-volume biography of Keynes, perhaps 15 years ago, I met him at a conference in Brazil. We became friends after that and met several times, mostly in London but also in Beijing.
www.thetimes.com/uk/obituarie...

A printed dollar note from the town of Hawarden, Iowa, issued in the early years of the Great Depression

In the early Depression a local Maytag dealer convinced the town of Hawarden, IA to print its own dollars. It wasn't fiat; Hawarden maintained a fund to buy back every note. Dollars never worked equally well for everyone, and they still don't today. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/634502...

If money could buy elections they would have been purchased long ago by people named Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton.

My son’s hockey coach this morning: “You’re all big dumb 14-year-olds now. GO OUT THERE AND HIT SOMEONE.”

Wherein Claude increasingly feels like a personal assistant who got the job because their uncle is running the company

Yeah, I was a boat dirtbag briefly in my early 20s.

As a grad student and early-career researcher, I got a lot of grief for studying what I did. "Rebecca isn't serious," they said. "She studies restaurants." And here they are, the barometer of public health, safety, and democratic norms.

O Captain, my captain I once mentioned to Bill Buckley how much I enjoyed the job of mate on his boat.

www.latimes.com/archives/la-...

"The origins of the word "eurodollar" are even more complicated than this, but if the author had chased every interesting question into the hills, he would nave never finished this book, and you would not not be reading it. he barely finished as it is."

Still my favorite endnote. I was a little punchy by the time I got to Chapter 6. The book got finished! You can pre-order here! www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/634502...

Small sailing boat

An end note which includes "The aiuthor feels compelled to mention that he once worked as a crew member on a boat where Evan Galbraith was a frequent guest, but didn't understand what Galbraith actually did for a living until decades later, when the name popped up in research for this book."

In which I document in an end note that I let an extraordinary oral history slip through my fingers because I was 22 and didn't yet know anything about anything

I am both flattered and mercenary. This is the book @peark.es meant. He has an early copy, but it's out in May and available for pre-order now. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/634502...

cc @lauratamman.bsky.social

You know I'm busy writing about eurodollars and you do this to me

This is good knowledge

Chart of relative frequency of positive versus negative terms from the Beige Book since 1996

Beige Book tilted sharply more optimistic in April. Given firms are unlikely to have felt many direct effects of Iran war-related disruptions, might not last, but it sure looks like the economy had started to accelerate markedly this year before that kicked off.