Author Archives: Yves Smith
Extractive Taxation and the French Revolution
What ought to be a cause for tariffs pause: unrepresentative and often high taxes were a major spur to the French Revolution.
Read more...Scholars Under Fire
An in-depth look at pressure campaigns against scholars.
Read more...As History Erasure Intensifies, Independent Internet Archives Are Helping Fortify the ‘Digital Preservation Infrastructure’
How internet archives are thwarting the reactionary campaign to rewrite history and censor inconvenient information and ideas.
Read more...How the American Economy Is Rigged to Serve the Rich, and Why Tariffs Won’t Change That
The money to support well-paid American jobs exists—it’s just being hoarded by the rich.
Read more...Trump Wants World to Subsidise US Empire
A Trump advisor argues, in all seriousness, that other countries should help bear the cost of US empire because it confers so many benefits on them.
Read more...What Science Says About Food Additives
RFK Jr. has said the U.S. should end the use of synthetic food additives. How would that affect public health?
Read more...Satyajit Das: On Cinema –Surviving Childhood
A look at some prime cinematic treatments on the coming of age, not the treacley or heroic sort, but nuanced portraits.
Read more...Before Banks: Historical Lessons for Rethinking Credit
The era before modern banking took off featured flexible, highly personal credit arrangements, in some ways better than what we have now.
Read more...Links 4/19/2025
Trump and Rubio Signal US on Verge of Halting Ukraine Peace Negotiations
As we had predicted from early on, the Ukraine peact talks are failing. Trump is threatening to pull the plug.
Read more...Come-Gimme! Why Do We Shrug When Apes Cross the Language Barrier?
Despite startling breakthroughs, the first words and signs of great apes are rarely publicly celebrated by scientists.
Read more...“Is Trump About to End Democracy in the USA?”
Trump asked the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to determine whether to use the Insurrection Act to secure the southern border
Read more...Trump Makes Presumed Empty but Loud Threat to Fire Fed Chair Powell, Showing that Trump Will Continue to Wreck Markets and the Economy to Prove His Manhood
Trump is now taking on Fed chair Powell over Powell’s refusal to cut rates to bail Trump out of the economic messes he created.
Read more...Tariffs, the Dollar, and Equities: High-Frequency Evidence from the Liberation Day Announcement
Sales of US equities by foreign owners played a meaningful role in the falll of the dollar after the Trump tariff rampage began.
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