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Economics

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Economics

Matthew LoftusEconomics

“You have got to feed the biology of the soil.” - Doctors Without Boredom

I have long been interested in the work of the Land Institute and their perennial crops, so I appreciated this story about how people are trying to use them: “Mainstream agriculture, they just don’t get it,” says Jerry Doan, standing […]

Matthew LoftusCultureEconomics

whither conservatism? - Doctors Without Boredom

While there’s a lot more that could be said and a lot of things that could be said differently (as I hope to in a forthcoming essay for Mere-O), I appreciated this assessment from Timothy Shenk at Dissent of where things are […]

Jake MeadorEconomicshealth

Is Burnout a Generational Issue or a Class Issue? - Commonplaces

If you haven’t yet, please do read Anne Helen Peterson’s excellent Buzzfeed essay on millennials and burnout. My first reaction to the essay was to agree with nearly every word of it and pass it on to others. But after […]

Matthew LoftusEconomicsCriminal Justicedirty moneycrime

$2.1 trillion in dirty money annually - Doctors Without Boredom

I felt like this interview itself was a little short and didn’t quite get to the point, but I am very interested in the degree to which the international finance industry might be reformed to help make corruption and crime […]

Matthew LoftusEconomicsdistributism

employee stock ownership plans - Doctors Without Boredom

I really appreciated Rachel Cohen’s discussion of what an employee stock ownership plan is and why there’s enthusiasm for them: Unlike conservatives, who have defended employee ownership on the grounds that it’s most certainly not socialism — indeed, it turns laborers into capitalists — […]

Matthew LoftusHistoryEconomics

makes you wanna holler - Doctors Without Boredom

This report from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (an organization doing more than any other, I think, to highlight where and how people can be working for the localism we like to talk about) highlights how dollar stores deliver low-quality goods […]

Matthew LoftusCultureHistoryEthicsEconomics

Sabbath and soil - Doctors Without Boredom

Years ago, when I first studied Isaiah 58, I found its call to honor the Sabbath mingled with the call to do away with violence and injustice odd. I suppose that I had grown up thinking of Sabbath-keeping as a […]

Matthew LoftusCultureHistoryEconomics

"Uncontrolled liberalism, in other words, prepares the grounds for its own demise." - Doctors Without Boredom

There are some very sharp insights in this interview with Pankaj Mishra in the LA Review of Books: “Liberal modernity,” you’ve argued, “has prepared the ground for its destruction” by unleashing forces that are “uncontrollable.” Have these forces contributed to […]

Matthew LoftusCultureEconomics

"economics of meaning" - Doctors Without Boredom

Shadi Hamid has a very interesting essay in American Affairs Journal about the possibilities of left populism and the “economics of meaning”: It might be tempting to say that Left populists simply need a “hero”; the Left, unlike the Right, […]

Matthew LoftusEconomics

what Amazon got out of the HQ2 search - Doctors Without Boredom

Amazon got more than just some tax breaks in its HQ2 search: But arguably even more concerning than deepening regional inequality and the possibility of Bezos becoming the landlord of the nation’s capital is the fact that few cities will […]

Matthew LoftusFamilyCultureEconomics

migration and American identity - Doctors Without Boredom

Luma Simms has two very interesting pieces interacting with Reihan Salam’s new book Melting Pot or Civil War? One is at Public Discourse and the other is at Law and Liberty: From the first piece: Immigration, work migration, the flight […]

Matthew LoftusCultureEconomics

video killed the #1 burger joint in the country - Doctors Without Boredom

This is a really sad story that I think is ultimately about power, technology, and the way in which media shapes our understanding of ourselves and the world around us: In my office, I have a coffee mug from Stanich’s […]