An organised hypocrisy that made the News of the World very British indeed and other news and views for Wednesday 25 June
- A conspiracy involving not just the tabloids but their readers - The News of the World was a unique and, for more than a century, highly successful British institution. Its longstanding success rested on a simple premise: that of hypocrisy. … We would all pretend to be shocked by what we read, in exchange for the pleasure of reading about it. In a country that, more than most, operates as an organised hypocrisy, that made the News of the World very British indeed.
- Scott Morrison’s foul bet on torture - Asylum seekers at 50:50 risk of torture can be sent home.
- Libya holds elections to end post-Gaddafi instability
- Believe it or not: Karl Marx is making a comeback – “It’s true. The ‘Communist Manifesto’ co-author has gotten a second life — and he has some advice for progressives.
- France seeks to shed reputation for rudeness to woo tourists – “The Socialist government, desperately seeking ways to inject new life into the stuttering economy, is rolling out a plan to transform the tourist industry – not least by addressing the delicate issue of treating holidaymakers with a little more grace.”
- Devaluing the Bolivarian revolution – How much worse will Venezuela’s economy get?
- Defend Argentina from the vultures - A creditor paid more to take on the risk of a default cannot then be surprised by it.
- The Capitol Since the Nineteenth Century: Political Polarization and Income Inequality in the United States – “Even the most casual observer of American politics knows that today’s Republican and Democratic parties seem to disagree with one another on just about every issue under the sun. Some assume that this divide is merely an inevitable feature of a two-party system, while others reminisce about a golden era of bipartisan cooperation and hold out hope that a spirit of compromise might one day return to Washington. In this post, we present evidence that political polarization—or the trend toward more ideologically distinct and internally homogeneous parties—is not a recent development in the United States, although it has reached unprecedented levels in the last several years. We also show that polarization is strongly correlated with the extent of income inequality, but only weakly associated with the rate of economic growth.”
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