Branko Milanovic
@BrankoMilan
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1) Income inequality; 2) Politics; 3) History; 4) Soccer. Author of "Global inequality" and "Capitalism, Alone" (2019). Stone Center, CUNY; LSE, London
New York
Joined December 2012
So why is Musk as a private citizen not allowed to intervene in foreign policy, and Soros as a private citizen is allowed to fund hundreds of political organizations abroad?.
BREAKING: Macron accuses Elon Musk of election interference. "Who would have thought, if we had been told that the owner of one of the largest social networks in the world would support the new international reactionary movement and intervene directly in elections."
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Honestly, I have never, never seen in my life an article that openly, without dissimulation, calls for two distinct judicial systems: one for upper races, another for lower.
According to the Washington Post Israel should not be investigated by the ICC because Hamas is “human shielding” and Israel is a democracy fighting barbarians. ICC is not for civilized colonial powers.
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China, by not attacking anyone since 1979, unlike the US and Russia which conducted a number of unjustified wars, is increasingly looking like the most rational major world actor.
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Europe back to its normal. France in revolution, Russia in oppression, Balkans in mutual fighting, Britain in aloofness.
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This must be the most unbelievable opinion piece in the past 50 years. So the international rules are only for one sort of people (Untermenschen) while superior races must be exempt from it. It should be framed and displayed!.
According to the Washington Post Israel should not be investigated by the ICC because Hamas is “human shielding” and Israel is a democracy fighting barbarians. ICC is not for civilized colonial powers.
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There is not much to think there. Milei is not far-right. Milei is far-away from reason.
En un abrazo solidario a la #Argentina, destacados economistas como Thomas Piketty, Branko Milanović, Jayati Ghosh y José Antonio Ocampo advierten sobre la amenaza del posible triunfo del ultra-derechista Javier Milei para nuestro país 👇🏼.@PikettyWIL @BrankoMilan @JayatiGhosh
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Why is nobody discussing truly staggering differences in death rates between Eastern and Western Europe? In the @FT graphs none of EE countries is even included. The gap is just striking. (Worldometer, 22 April).
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I know nothing about tennis & I do not follow it. But if you have a Grand Slam in your own country every year (for historical reasons only & thus unfairly) & you boo people b/c you do not like their nationality you should be called out.
Novak Djokovic just set the #Wimbledon crowd straight after they booed him, as they always do: . “you guys can’t touch me.” . 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
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Watching Europeans govt's argue in favor of price controls while their own representatives have spent half-a-century voting for IMF programs that would abolish price controls anywhere else is. well, a spectacle.
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An incredible excerpt, incl. in the body language of the BBC guy who at first never looks straight at Guyana's president (he would never interview like this a prez of a big country) and then gets totally lost & falls silent.
“Let me stop you right there…”. Caribbean nation Guyana is booming after discovering oil. BBC’s Stephen Sackur puts it to President @presidentaligy; lobbyists say oil is bad for the climate. Dude wasn’t having it. Mans was ready!
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How to explain that Finland, Iceland and Denmark are the top three happiest countries in the world, but are also No. 10, No. 1 and No. 9 in per capita consumption of anti-depressants? Do you take an anti-depressant before you answer the question on happiness?.
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Lenin 1916:."Neither Russia, nor Germany, nor any other Great Power has the right to claim that it is waging a “war of defence”; all the Great Powers are waging an imperialist, capitalist war, a predatory war, a war for the oppression of small and foreign nations,.
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Many policies that 20y ago were thought great (and the World Bank promoted them all) are now seen as failures:.1. Complex financial instruments.2. Student loans.3. Private pensions.4. Fast privatization .5. Privatization of infrastructure & water.6. Cutting basic food subsidies.
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Nationalism in Eastern Europe is the worst possible disease. It was subdued under communism. It was used as a tool to undo communist regimes. It might now blow up the entire world into pieces.
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People have died for many reasons: nations, religions and ideologies. But it is indeed a new thing to die for Dow Jones. It is fully post-modern. To die for rich people's *perceptions* about the future summarized in one abstract number.
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In a certain perverse, and intentional, way Israel's actions are even directed against the West. By showing that it openly disregards all rules, that the West can do nothing to stop it & that it is an accomplice, it helps to destroy West's last vestiges of credibility.
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Biden's reaction so far, walking a super fine line between reacting to the invasion of an independent country, and saving the world from a nuclear holocaust, was, I think, absolutely perfect. I am afraid that many people are unable to see how hard this is to do.
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The reason why Maradona is so loved by millions of people in the world is because he showed that to be truly great it is not sufficient to be a phenomenal athlete; nor is it desirable to be a creature of the media and companies. You have to be a great person.
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The Super League is not a joke. A sport that was always a sport of the working class, open to everybody, fought against the discrimination, made many people's weekends happy, is now being hijacked by a group of kleptocrats who do not care about its history or social function.
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Some stunning results for Spain, based on the just-published @lisdata harmonized survey data. Ten years after the crisis, real median income is the same as in 2007, bottom 40% lost in real terms, income of the top 1% went up by 21%.
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Eventually, the Cuban regime will fall, whether this year or another year. Yet, the US policy towards the people in Cuba will remain in the annals of history as one of the meanest policies ever pursued by a great power towards a small neighboring country that was never a threat.
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It seems to me that the political literature of the 1980-90s is so utterly unrelated to today, while the literature of one hundred years ago sounds like it was written yesterday.
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(Long thread--but worth reading). I received lots of pushback (including some pretty nasty comments) on my tweets re. the most recent “Nobel Prize” in economics.
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The beauty of economics is that because nobody reads anything that was written more than 5 years ago, theories, hypotheses, doctrines can be permanently reinvented, and people can get famous for a couple of years until what they wrote is in turn forgotten.
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Viktor Orban, the only foreign leader who came to Gorbachev's funeral.
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I cannot count the number of articles over the past 20 years (including from Nobel prize winners) that I read about how China cannot innovate b/c it is not a free market economy. But now I have to read the articles from the same people telling me how a state-directed economy.
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Very honored to receive Republic Day greetings from His Excellency Prime Minister @narendramodi at the occasion of the 75th anniversary of India's independence.
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I know that it is a rant. But I just cannot understand that a country with a GDP of $20 trillion and health expenditures of 17% of GDP, by far the highest per capita in the world, has 1/3 of all covid-19 deaths in the world and. this is something considered almost normal.
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Unbelievable. Foreign officials involved in domestic legislation. Could China's foreign minister march with Gilets Jaunes?.
The chair of Germany’s Foreign Committee marches in front of pro-democracy protesters in Tbilisi, Georgia 🇬🇪
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High-speed rail is faster than driving, more convenient than flying, and (socially) cheaper than either one.
High‐speed rail is slower than flying, less convenient than driving, and more expensive than either one. #CatoTransit
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“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” .Lenin.
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It is simply inconsistent to be against taxation of inheritance and to be in favor of equality of opportunity. You have to decide if you want one or the other.
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Superficiality of Obama strikes again. Lula rose up from poverty, union leadership and jail (not a year as a "community organizer") to lead the country that under him reduced poverty by millions. In the meantime Obama hired Wall Street bosses to clean up the mess they created.
Obama describes Lula in his new memoir as "having the scruples of a Tammany Hall boss.".
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Almost no one in the media mentions that NATO continues its expansion. In 2017 it added Montenegro (without a popular referendum which NATO knew they would lose) and in 2020 North Macedonia. These events are almost not covered in the Western media at all.
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It is a bit strange that neither Panama papers (if I remember well) nor Pandora papers have any US politicians involved. Makes you wonder who produces these papers.
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For global neoliberalism and democracy, Israel's war in Gaza is what Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia was for communism. The gap between the proclaimed values and reality is so wide that it cannot be papered over again. And it reveals the untruth of ideology. Nail in the coffin.
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If you start questioning the historical origin of any European country's border, you are going to end up in a permanent war of all against all.
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Russian frozen assets (state and private) are probably over $1/2 trillion, and possibly ~$600-700 billion. Now, a fair guess is that money will never be seen by Russia again, no more than Iranian money was seen. It represents a coerced transfer of wealth of unheard of proportions.
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My core economics view is very simple. 1) Economics is a social science. 2) Its role is to help us understand history (Smith, Marx) and increase welfare (Marshall). 3) The central part of economics is economics of growth and economics of inequality (Ricardo; Kuznets).
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A Nobel Laureate Offers a Biting Critique of Economics.Angus Deaton says Larry Summers and other great minds in the profession have lost sight of its most important mission: Improving people’s lives.
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There are totally absurd claims (repeated by Putin today) about "conservative values" that ostensibly exist in Russia. Even the most cursory look at numbers shows it is a total nonsense. Compared to (eg) France, divorce, suicide, murder, abortion are 2-3 times greater in Russia.
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Probably less than 1% of people in the world own shares, but 2/3 of Nobel Prize winners in econ are about stock market behavior.
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A thing I find puzzling (it is alluded to in @Noahpinion piece on SF) is how 30y of tech business & thousands of millionaires have not been able to leave much of a visible imprint on SF: no new universities, theaters, libraries, cathedrals, museums, pedestrian areas, fancy parks.
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The rich people in the US never thought that a broken health care system will ever matter to them. Now it does.
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Global income distribution has radically changed in the past 30 years. It now looks almost like a distribution of a single country which is normally bell-shaped (with income in logs on the x-axis). Leaving these niceties aside, it is clear that a global median class has emerged.
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As the joke goes, "we have free speech. We just do not have freedom after speech.".
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In the "nerding out" part: the end of the elephant. Between 2008 and 2018, incomes of the globally poor have increased in percentage terms much more than the incomes of the globally rich. The global Gini has gone down.
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I do not think that one should read books that are directly addressing current events. They are mostly written in haste w/the objective to make money. Nobody will remember them. There cannot be a serious analysis of something that is ongoing. For that one is better off w/Twitter.
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I remember when .1 The war in Yugoslavia started in 1991.2 The NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999.3 The US attack on Iraq in 2003.4 The Russian attack now.every time --as when you face a mortal disease-- you hope some miracle will happen & the war will stop. But it never does.
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Neoliberals and the center-right have now for a decade agreed that s'thing has to be done to reduce inequality of wealth & income. But whenever there is *any* proposal, they are against it. I conclude they are in favor of inequality reduction by magic.
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The use of fake feminism to support policies that kill or make life impossible for thousands of women.
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In non-communist countries, the soccer club split was/is always working class vs. bourgeoisie (Roma/Lazio, Boca/River, Besiktas/Galatasay, Atletico/Real); under communism the split was Army/police (Partizan/Red Star, CSKA/Dinamo, Steaua/Dinamo) etc.
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The ideological influence of neolib is so strong ppl who have never heard that the capitalist state in the 60s controlled banking, set interest rates, kept currency non-convertible, had high tariff rates, imposed wage scales, set prices, would not believe it was. capitalism too.
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The key contradiction is the idea that you combat something with extremely high externality (*infectious* disease) by letting people make free decisions based on the estimate of their own welfare only. It cannot work. And it is not working.
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Twitter has really gone nuts. I wanted to retweet my piece from China Daily. Three times it stops me from retweeting by telling me it is from a "state-affiliated media". Of course, not all"state-affiliated" media get the same treatment. Let alone "billionaire-affiliated media".
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The problem is not the names of ppl who got the "Nobel" (have never heard of them), the problem is what's econ. Is it a social science whose aim is to help understand the evolution of societies & improve human living conditions or is it a subsection of financial manipulation?.
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Of course, ppl disagree. My point is that, had Maradona been the player that he was & perhaps even better (if he had not squandered some of very good years), he would be less epic. To be epic you have to have flaws and not to be perfect. This is greatness. It requires tragedy.
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It is interesting to watch West European teams whose backbone is composed of first or second generation migrants winning while the anti-migrant feeling in these same countries is at its peak.
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How to become much quoted and successful economic commentator on China. Follow these simple rules and you too can become a China pundit.
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Reading articles about China these days requires suspension of common sense. They invariably begin with lack of growth and economic crisis to continue with the complaints that China is overproducing everything from EVs to steel & has expanded production too fast.
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Most extraordinary change in only 30 years, probably the greatest over such a short period ever. The shape of the global income distribution has totally changed: notice the new thickness in the middle, btw $PPP3k and $PPP10k where in 1988 there were very few people.
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When in my recent talk in Edinburgh I claimed that Adam Smith could be seen as "a man of the left" (these terms btw are not used in the Visions of Inequality) this was based on the following:.
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Just a few simple things to do:.1. Fix the health system.2. Improve public education.3. Tax private university endowments.4. Invest in infrastructure.5. Reduce carbon emissions.6. Increase taxes on the top one-third of tax payers.7. Increase inheritance tax.
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Adam Smith for anti-mask libertarians:."But these exertions of natural liberty of a few individuals which might endanger the security of the whole society are, and ought to be, restrained by laws of all govts, of the most free as well as of the most despotic". WoN, Bk 2, Ch 2.
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There were 10 (ten) months to prepare the distribution of the vaccines. It is not like people realized yesterday that they needed to design a system for the distribution.
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Palestinians' situation is truly tragic. Western press never reported on them because Israel is an ally. Russian press does not report because Russia is now allied w/ Israel. Arab press does not report from fear of inflaming local population. So no one reports.
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US went to a 20-year war that changed the Middle East forever because of 3,000 dead. Now, 3,000 people die every day and it barely makes it into the news.
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What industrial policy, tariff wars, economic coercion and trade blocs mean is not only a reversal of globalization but recognition that the West is not willing to accept convergence of incomes & lessening of global inequality b/c it sees it as a threat to its dominant role.
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If US intelligence was so wrong regarding the staying power of the current Afghan govt (with whom they were involved for 20 years--so they should know s'thing about it), one wonders how wrong they may be about things where the evidence is not as immediate and clear-cut as here.
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Except that it does not label like this BBC or VoA. So how does this work?.
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The apparent inevitable victory of the Taliban in Afghanistan is a total disaster. But rather than just complain, people should ask the Q: US has been occupying A. for 20 years; its best political scientists have worked on A's constitution and advised against corruption;.
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I think the best way to define German Greens is to say that they are "European supremacists". That sums it all.
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In the new 2013/4 global income distribution data (just completed): .the bottom 5% in Chile are at the same income level as the bottom 5% in Mongolia and Moldova; .meanwhile, the top 2% in Chile (probably underestimated) have the same income as the top 2% in Germany.
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It should be included into the openly racist, supremacist literature; it is unbelievable that it is published by the Editorial Board of a *liberal* paper. It is shameful and despicable.
According to the Washington Post Israel should not be investigated by the ICC because Hamas is “human shielding” and Israel is a democracy fighting barbarians. ICC is not for civilized colonial powers.
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Chile beats Russia, in the combined wealth of its billionaires as a share of GDP. (Forbes 2014 data). (Chile is actually the most unequal country in the world by this measure).
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The world has taken a wrong turn. It is hard to tell exactly when. But it is unmistakable by now.
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We have this crazy paradoxical situation that the rich people who are by far the greatest CO2 emitters are engaged into virtue-signaling by token actions and giving lessons to the developing world that they should not grow and become rich themselves.
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In international relations, political realists bring peace;.political idealists bring war. Discuss.
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It seems like the Taliban did not pay much attention to Stanford's Law School Project on Constitutionalism in Afghanistan, and this despite numerous conferences held in Palo Alto.
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Chile is such an extravagant case of inequality that even back-of-the-envelope calculations suffice. Current measures proposed by the govt to diffuse social tensions are estimated to cost 0.4% of GDP. Chilean billionaires wealth is 25% of GDP.
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If you live long enough you can witness two global ideologies collapse .(under the weight of their contradictions).
Nov 9, 1989 - Jan 20, 2025.
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Covid is a great equalizer. For some of my Italian friends who have never experienced pure discrimination based on nationality it's a shocker. For others (like me) who have experienced a mild discrimination it's not a surprise.For many who experience it daily, it's life as usual.
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its best economists have designed A's economy; its best military have trained the Afghani forces. And all of that crumbles in four weeks. So, what kind of state-building project is this when it falls apart so quickly & nobody wants to fight for it?.
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High-speed rail is faster than driving, more convenient than flying, and (socially) cheaper than both.
High‐speed rail is slower than flying, less convenient than driving, and more expensive than either one. #CatoTransit
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People who do not realize the seriousness of today's situation should read a bit of history. Conflicts never start out of the blue. They are preceded by months or years of verbal insults, demonization of the foe, economic sanctions, and then the breakdown in communication.
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Now, nothing stands between Democrats and the New New Deal--except their donors and their lack of will.
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It is strange to read a discussion of developing world vaccination that entirely ignores the fact that China has exported (given or sold) vaccines to some 90 countries, India (before the current outbreak) and Russia to some 70 countries. As if that does not exist.
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Elephant no more. Global top 1% growth has significantly slowed down after the financial crisis, its share in global income has declined, overall global ineq continued on its downward path. Conclusions hold even when adjusted for top income underestimation. Forthcoming paper.
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And now for another set of neighbors: USA vs Mexico. Here we are in a different world. The gap is large throughout the distribution, but it almost disappears at the top (Mexican top 1% is also among the global top). The lower you go, the larger the differential.
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The real persons of the year are health care workers and the people who have developed the vaccines in 9 months, not politicians who did nothing.
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"Rules-based international order".
Read the letter from 12 Republican senators threatening ICC chief prosecutor @KarimKhanQC with "severe" consequences for him, his family & staff if he goes ahead with an arrest warrant for Netanyahu. "You have been warned.". Oh and subscribe to Zeteo too:.
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I was never (to put it mildly) a fan of Greta, but I am not entirely blind: since she started speaking to stop the war in Gaza, she has been treated as a non-person by the dominant media.
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It is hard to understand how people cannot (genuinely) understand China's reaction when it is clear that the.the West wants to:.stop China's rise.break up the country.and .overthrow the current government. What would you do?.
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The German Greens transformation is one of the most extraordinary. From being pro-Third World, they are now against it (European supremacism is their mot d'ordre). From saluting successes of poorer countries, they are now attacking them ferociously (China & India).
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The Economist goes for the well-proven Stalinist approach of air-brushing the history.
The Economist seems to have a problem with the Palestinian flag being displayed on its cover.
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The similarities btw the current Western dominant narrative and the late communist narrative are absolutely striking: In both cases, words have lost all relation to reality.
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US is a bizarre democracy. You always learn there are obscure acts that suspend all rights. Now there the Insurrection Act 213 years old. A couple of years ago, it was the 1917 Espionage Act. Then there are anti-union acts. .
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The mainstream of the party of the ostensible left thinks:.1) free education is like "chocolate milk for all" (Hillary).2) loves Bush and thinks he was a great guy (from Obama to Nancy Pelosi).3) believes Bolivia's coup is the return of freedom (Biden). Wow!.
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The extraordinary thing about the present-day elites is they are shameless. They are shameless b/c they have money and money is all that counts. If Pravda was awarded the prize for reporting on the invasion of Afghanistan people would laugh. But if you have no shame, you do not.
@hannahdreier @nytimes @stillsarita @NewYorker @sarahanneconway @city_bureau @invinst @Reuters @washingtonpost Congratulations to @nytimes. #Pulitzer
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