Can online learning be saved? Lessons from the pandemic school closures.
Wednesday, August 6, 2025
2:00PM Water Cooler 7/12/2023
~ Today’s Water Cooler ~
Book Review: Richard Vague, “The Paradox of Debt”
And why finding reforms to our current economic system is a Sisyphean task.
Michael Hudson: Colonialism or Sovereignty? How the Global Financial System Traps Countries in Debt
Political economists Radhika Desai, Michael Hudson, and Ann Pettifor discuss how the international financial system traps Global South countries in debt, reinforcing a neocolonial order.
As Nonprofit Hospitals Reap Big Tax Breaks, States Scrutinize Their Required Charity Spending
A state court, citing “eye-popping” executive compensation, strikes down a hospital’s property tax break and strikes fear into the nonprofit hospital industry across the US.
Big Oil’s Radical Proposal: Curtail Consumption, Not Production
Should the public take Big Oil advocating for energy conservation as a serious climate policy, or just a new flavor of greenwashing?
On Taking Walks
Is the flâneur necessarily an urban male?
2:00PM Water Cooler 7/11/2023
~ Today’s Water Cooler ~
Is Peru About to Descend Into Another Wave of Political Violence, This Time With US Troops on the Ground?
Peru’s Boluarte government has zero democratic legitimacy, is broadly rejected by the public and under investigation for numerous human rights violations. Now, with roughly 1,000 US troops stationed in the country, it faces a third massive march on Lima.
Wolf Richter: End of Easy Money: Financial Conditions Loosen Again for Junk-Rated Companies. But Some that Long Teetered Finally Go Over the Bankruptcy Cliff
Tightening is a slow process, and there is still a flood of excess liquidity chasing after yield.
CDC’s HICPAC Prepares to Whack More Patients as Infection Control Experts Gather for August 22 Teleconference on Masks
“We said we’d *control* infection, right?”
2:00PM Water Cooler 7/10/2023
~ Today’s Water Cooler ~
Correlations Among Risks: Lessons from the Silicon Valley Bank Collapse
Bank regulation and intervention measures should be focused on the correlations and causal relationships between risk drivers
