Sunday assorted links

by  Tyler Cowen

1. Money from Putin and trouble in Austria.

2. Less social discounting from autistics.

3. Jeff Koons is underrated (NYT).

4. “Soil Instead Of Ashes: Human Composting Is About To Become Legal In Washington State.”

5. Anti-inflation dubplate.

6. Newark schools have in fact turned around (The Economist, and I’d like to see a separate piece on whether Mark Zuckerberg deserves any credit for this.)

Comments

Dick the Butcher

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I wasn't hating on Jeff Koons.

#5 - Inflation isn't likely here - recession. From Zero Hedge for what it's worth. NY Fed Recession Watch - UST three-month vs. 10 yr. yield curve turned negative this week. Last times that happened were before the 2001-2002 and 2008 recessions.

The Cuckmeister-General

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In a famous passage of the Eighteenth Brumaire, Marx depicted the French peasantry
as a "sack of potatoes", constitutionally incapable of any largescale coherence
of interest of social action except as a mobilized by a charismatic leader.
From our foregoing account, it is hard to avoid a similar judgment about
Marginal Revolution readers.

a clock worn orange

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the view on jeff koons has always been too big to loose. alas, "someone must see this already today, and speak heretically today about tomorrow." in modern sculpture, the issue is not tension but stress, as here, the "microspeed of tongue" is severely less than "microspeed of thoughts." So too with numbers, sechs, or einundzwanzig, they provide a good lily but koons chooses rabbit and orange and silver. Where is the math? What is he translating? So with Scriabian, one hears jazz more than Chopin.

Dick the Butcher

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I'm not hating Hillary but she is a very nasty woman. She deserved to lose. #maga2020

אינדקס אתרים

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What i don't understood is if truth be told how you're not really much more neatly-liked than you may be now. You're so intelligent. You know therefore significantly in terms of this topic, produced me personally consider it from numerous various angles. Its like women and men aren't interested except it's something to do with Girl gaga! Your own stuffs excellent. Always take care of it up!

Anonymous

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4. I've told the fam they can put me in the green bin.

But for real?

mw

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Is it possible to be underrated and overpriced?

Anonymous

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1. Uh-oh

"Ms. McFadden, a longtime anti-money laundering specialist in Deutsche Bank’s Jacksonville office, said she had reviewed the transactions and found that money had moved from Kushner Companies to Russian individuals. She concluded that the transactions should be reported to the government — in part because federal regulators had ordered Deutsche Bank, which had been caught laundering billions of dollars for Russians, to toughen its scrutiny of potentially illegal transactions."

Deutsche Bank Staff Saw Suspicious Activity in Trump and Kushner Accounts

Ray Lopez

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Yawn. Fake news. Even I, a relative nobody in the mere 1% (>$10M net worth), "launder money". Much ado about nothing.
NY Times: "Real estate developers like Mr. Trump and Mr. Kushner sometimes do large, all-cash deals, including with people outside the United States, any of which can prompt anti-money laundering reviews. The red flags raised by employees do not necessarily mean the transactions were improper. "

A Caning for Mercatus Employees

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Do you cuck in real life too?

Ray Lopez is in the 1%

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I didn't know that. Why didn't he mention this in any of his previous postings?

Anonymous

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Remember the old days, when a US CIA analyst or defense contractor would sell out their country for maybe five or ten grand?

They seemed like pikers then, but especially now. What you want to do now is move at least a few million in real estate, or react to the dangle of a billion dollar tower project. That's when money makes friends, and if your electorate is mercenary enough, it isn't seen as a crime at all.

Even when it is, technically, a crime.

Hmmm

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Let’s see how it shakes out. Any news about Trump usually turns false within a given time frame.

We keep seeing a five stages of grief process every time Anonymous reads a piece of Trump news (mostly just tweets) that turns into nothing upon further inspection.

I wouldn’t be surprised by tax evasion. Anything involving Russia seems to make reporters drop any pretense of rationality or skepticism. So let’s see the documents and we can verify.

Anonymous

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Anybody who believes that is constantly working on reality with a pair of pruning shears.

Hmmm

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I've stayed away from pruning shears ever since my wife's black boyfriend cut my penis off with a pair.

Anonymous

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You really aren't helping.

Hmmm

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He’s both your ideological ally and your peer in logical debates.

He’s you, in a mirror. Don’t run; I’m sure he’ll comment again.

A Caning for Mercatus Employees

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It's msgkings again

Hmmm

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Nah, it’s really not.

And I do hope msgkings is fine, hopefully just busy with life.

Anonymous

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I'll leave it and let you enjoy the news day. Remember, for unfiltered news:

https://www.memeorandum.com/m/

I prefer the mobile view, even on the big screen.

Dick the Butcher

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When did they bury the putrid corpse of journalism? Was it 2008?

Dick the Butcher

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To be fair to professional liars like Dan Rather and everyone at NYT, WaPost, CNN and MSNBC, etc., the same question applies to the putrid corpse of higher education.

Jan

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Remember, after you've sent Alex Jones your last dollar for the most amazing supplements ever, that you're not just poorer for listening to him and his ilk. You're also much, much dumber.

Hmmm

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This weekend, for the first time in many years, I watched a Fox News clip. It was of an interview with Buttigieg (was linked on Vox) with some old man named Wallace.

I’ve always instantly dismissed Fox News as the right wing version of Maddow, but on steroids. To be fair, the only MSNBC I have watched was a Maddow show where she promised to show the goods on Trump taxes (fail), and during the election when the entire reporting crew began to weep on television.

Anyways, I assume this was a fluke. But the interview with Buttigieg ended with Fox essentially saying he was an intelligent, capable, and thoughtful man. And at no point was his sexuality mentioned. He was taken seriously and respectfully.

Meanwhile the only NYTimes articles covering him are about his sexuality and whether his gayness makes up for his whiteness and male genitalia.

Probably sampling error.

And the only thing I know for sure about Alex Jones is the “frogs are turning gay” meme, which ironically multiple science teachers/professors taught me about in detail, since they were environmentalists and considered it a canary in the coal mine situation. I heard third hand some nuts shit about Sandy Hook and his insistence that it’s a false flag. If true, the lawsuits against him are morally justified, if not legally.

Now back to your comment. You accuse DtB of being not only a conspiracy theorist, but of giving the entirety of his wealth to Alex Jones.

Not cool. DtB makes inane comments all the time. You could respond with logic and rhetoric, you could ignore it, but instead you act like a child.

rayward

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To clarify, Deutsche Bank located their money-laundering specialists in Jacksonville, Florida, so they would have a high profile. Not. Indeed, read the article in the NYT and look at who the Bank appointed to be money-laundering specialists. If ever a bank tried to avoid seeing money-laundering in the bank, this was it. By the way, the Bank fired the money-laundering specialists who identified Trump and Kushner transactions as suspect. Trouble makers.

EdR

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Hi mouse.

I know it's hard - I feel your pain. You were expecting the perp walk. Instead he be doin a cake walk. The first stage(s) of grief are shock and denial - you keep on doing the same thing as If nothing has happened. But, sadly, something has happened - the Mueller investigation has ended after 2 years and tens of millions of wasted dollars. I know you are disappointed, and it's worse that that because Barr is going to investigate the dastardly corrupt treasonous cowards that tried to execute a coup d'etat. There will be perp walks.

It will all end some day. Trust me, it will end and you will survive. It will all be oj.

Impeach Trump

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Members of the GOP are now singing the chorus of impeachment. Glory Hallelujah! #trump4prison

chuck martel

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The "tens of millions of wasted dollars" were all paid to government employees and perhaps some contractors. Now that the phony investigation has ended are all these tax dollar recipients being laid off or are they moving to different desks in some other federal legal department? It seems likely that there was no hiring binge when this episode began and there won't be much of a dispersal now. They are, after all, federal employees.

Anonymous

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The Mueller report is a best seller.

https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/5/18/18629326/mueller-report-top-three-slots-new-york-times-best-seller

So some people appreciate it.

You probably only need to scan the first hundred pages to see (1) how up to their elbows the campaign was with the Russians and (2) how the campaign's public statements directed that effort.

It's just that public statements (1) appealing for Russian help, and then (2) denying their involvement, don't look like criminal conspiracy - because it's public, right there, and deniable at the same time.

Still, there is no reason anyone not in the bag for Trump should like any of it.

It was certainly dirty tricks with a hostile foreign intelligence service - with the plausible deniability that they were too dumb to know exactly what was going on.

Anonymous

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They also used cut-outs to good effect. When someone working "with knowledge of the campaign" buys supposed emails from Hillary's server from Russians, that isn't exactly the same as the campaign directing the Russians to steal them.

And publicly asking asking them to steal them was just a joke, ha ha, so why did Trump then complain that they hadn't shown up yet?

Loose connections, but not exactly exemplary behavior. Nor stink free.

Thiago Ribeiro

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#1 Evidently corruption is wrong and bad, but communism is even worse.

Anonymous

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Communism was bad, but it was corruption for chump change, a ticket to the Beryozka.

Oligarchy is communism with the brakes removed, where a new kind of apparatchik is expected to have billions in slush, and no compunction about throwing journalists out the window.

Thiago Ribeiro

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But, in a certain way, oligarchy is a barrier which can help to contain communism.

Karen Eliot

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#1: the Twitter Thread gives a completely wrong impression. what really happened: some non-Russians, either left wing activists or some western intelligence service, pretended to be Russian oligarchs and set this guy up. They got him drunk and promised to support him while expecting not clearly specified advantages in return. He tried to impress them by boasting and exaggerating his political influence, but clearly stated he won’t do anything illegal. Of course the video makes him seem like an ass but that was the whole point - they filled him up with alcohol and tried to make him say stupid things.
Since the video is already two years old they might have held it back to use it for blackmail, or just to wait for the most effective moment.
My bet is on an intelligence service. The Twitter guy makes it look like these were real russians (Putin! - Check the comment). Sometimes I despair over the naivety that people in the west have in regard of propaganda campaigns. As in the recent absurd claim that Russia would control German antifa groups.

Ray Lopez

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Wow, thanks. That's really interesting, if true. I was going to say that aside from receiving questionable funds, it seems nothing was really done wrong by this Austrian right-wing pol, since receiving money for campaigning should not be illegal, unless you think voters are complete idiots who will vote for anybody they see heavily advertised on TV. - RL

"The video shows Strache talking to the alleged niece of a Russian oligarch close to Putin. She indicates several times that she would invest several hundred million euros (in return for favours) to help Strache win, Russian money of unclear origin...According to the SZ, one can also hear how Strache describes how the Russian could illegally and clandestinely donate money to the FPÖ. He also claims that several Austrian billionaires have used this option in the past to donate to his party."

Karen Eliot

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what you quoted: That‘s exactly what any actually powerless politician of a small time opposition party would say to impress ultra-rich hot chicks. I really don’t see what all the hyperventilating is about.

Anonymous

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It's probably that word, "illegally," that is right there in the middle of it all.

Real_Tyler Cowen

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Cooooock

Karen Eliot

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There’s a difference between a newspaper writing the word „illegally“ and things that are actually against the law.

Anonymous

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Yeah, I bet if the newspaper says it, that even cancels it out.

Peter Akuleyev

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Except that Strache is the leader of the second largest party in Austria and FPÖ has had deep ties with major Austrian industrialists for decades. Also Strache, as leader of the Austrian neonazi party is in a sense the heir to the throne and an obvious inspiration to people like Salvini, Orban and Bannon. The crucial part of the scandal in Austria really is that Strache names names and revealed which billionaires are funding him (Glock,Hörten, Benko). That is the unforgivable sin.

Running as Centrist, my draft speech on my policy: a noun, verb, Russia

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Looks like TC read a Tweet, got a Pavlovian response, and ran with it when it was only about entrapment and innuendo – NO Russians!

I'm sure author of the tweet will have the integrity for a follow up story attesting all the holes or critically ask who set up the entrapment, right?

Sounds something out of the US Deep State playbook: FISA warrants containing fraudulent information, spies sent to entrap people, salacious and deceptive leaks from intelligence agencies to the MSM to cause innuendo.

There are no incentives to the MSM to investigate the origins of the Russia investigation or report the inevitable duds 95% of these "bombshell" Russia-gate leaks turn out to be given their survival relies on the Resistance consumer demographic.

The Cuckmeister-General

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#6 Too bad Booker seems like he got cucked

Moo cow

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Process question: can you cuck someone who's not married or even in an intimate relationship?

The Cuckmeister-General

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#1 Tyler is still on this Russia/Putin bandwagon hahahaha STILL butthurt over President Trump being elected after all these years LOL!

The Cuckmeister-General

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Tyler just CANNOT help self-cucking!

A Caning for Mercatus Employees

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6. Non ci credo

EverExtruder

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Did you even read the article?

A Caning for Mercatus Employees

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Cuckoloni!

Ray Lopez

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#5 - dats cool. "dubplate - an acetate recording disk, typically one featuring a dub version of a reggae song that is not yet on general release." - well, I learned two things, what is dubplate, and musicians will do anything for money, even ascribe to the dubious notion of the strong effects of money non-neutrality, in the song equating high inflation to slavery. At the risk of sounding like PA, according to the TradingEconomics website, Jamaica inflation for this year is between 3-5%, not worth singing about, though for some reason their inflation rate jumps around a lot (volatility), maybe due to their small size: "Inflation Rate in Jamaica averaged 8.99 percent from 2002 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 26.49 percent in August of 2008 and a record low of 1.60 percent in November of 2016".

Bonus trivia: reggae lyrics imitated, it is said, the fluctuating strength of a radio signal back in the early days of radio where it was not clear what the lyrics of a pop song were due to the distorting effects of the ionosphere. long shot kick de bucket...and the weeping and the wailing...he talk and talk..the purses....long sho kick de bucket.....em will em well and real... long sho kick de bucket...it was kill come back carasoul, long shot fell...alimony gone to hell... long sho kick de bucket.(fade)

Hmmm

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I don't care what you say, Trump could ram me up the ass any day!

Steve Sailer

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Newark is only 12 miles from Wall Street. It's a tremendous gentrification opportunity.

Luke

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Does anyone have a link to the post where Tyler admitted he'd chumped himself when he wrote that post about the winners and loser of the Barr announcement of the Mueller report? He didn't just leave that lie, did he?

MortMain

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4. Let's start with the politicians.

Jeff

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All this buzz over a rabbit that costs many tens of millions is puzzling. One can buy a rabbit that buzzes for about $30 on Amazon.

chuck martel

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3. Roberta Smith, the co-chief art critic, regularly reviews museum exhibitions, art fairs and gallery shows in New York, North America and abroad.

Could easily be the winner of the "most stupid thing written about art this year" award. The quality of the NYT just keeps circling the drain.

Alex

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2. Anyone want to translate what this means aside from the autistics were more generous? In particular, why were they generous?

Samuel Pepys

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I too would be interested if someone could take a look at the full paper.

The only explanation for this in the abstract seems to be that autistic people have "Reduced flexibility in distinguishing self/other perspective" (which seems to me to be the same things as more generous) and "shifting decision‐rules" (not sure what that means). In the lay summary they say autistic people may have "lower bias" toward unfamiliar people, which again sort of begs the question.

Perhaps they don't have an answer. Their original intent was to "examine whether seeing the world from another person's point of view and being generous toward other people are related". But they ended up with the opposite result as they seemed to expect, calling the result of higher generosity among autistic people with higher "egocentric perspective intrusion in VPT" "paradoxical".

One possibility is that this results from autistic people having higher emotional empathy (feeling for other people), while the VPT was just looking at cognitive empathy (understanding what other people are feeling). The entire "paradox" seems to result from thinking cognitive empathy is the sole factor in egocentricity, when really emotional empathy is probably way more telling.

IVV

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My Instagram account was flooded with ads for Rabbit in advance of the auction, despite the fact I'm totally not the kind of person to bid millions on art. The articles published talking about Jeff Koons were clearly placed front and center.

This is clearly all part of a huge PR blitz. I don't know why people are spending thousands/ millions making sure everyone knows who Jeff Koons is and trying to convince us his art matters, but that's clearly what's happening.

Best solution? Forget him and move on.

MortMain

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Jeff Koons sucks and you have your taste in your rectum.

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