The word “austerity” hasn’t taken hold in popular discussion here in America the way it has in the United Kingdom. So let’s define it before we go any further: in the latest episode of the “Pitchfork Economics” podcast, Mike Konczal, a director at the Roosevelt Institute, says austerity is the movement by government leaders “towards retrenchment, […]
Read More Don’t believe Mitch McConnell’s austerity talkOver at the Seattle Review of Books, co-founder Martin McClellan and I just announced that the site is going on indefinite hiatus. This was by no means an easy decision. I’m carrying a deep sense of sadness piled on top of all this other coronavirus weirdness, and I feel in many ways even more unrooted […]
Read More Why the Seattle Review of Books Is Going on Hiatus, and What’s Next for MeTreasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Sunday told Fox News’ Chris Wallace that the American economy would “bounce back” from the coronavirus shutdown by this summer. “As businesses begin to open,” Mnuchin promised, the “demand side of the economy” will “rebound.” Mnuchin was reiterating President Donald Trump’s line on the economy — the idea that when social distancing […]
Read More The coronavirus pandemic shows that the trickle-down theory of economic growth is a fabricationSeattle is one of America’s nerdiest cities — home to cartoonists, the publishers of Dungeons & Dragons, and a whole slew of video game developers. It’s also a city that profits greatly from the business of nerd culture, particularly through a full, year-round slate of large conventions in the downtown retail core ranging from Emerald […]
Read More Reopening the economy isn’t going to work if no one shows upIt’s a tiny storefront — just 500 square feet — but Wallingford bookstore Open Books has always been an especially inviting space. Its owner, Billie Swift, has watched people fall in love with the shop again and again. “We are across the street from a physical therapy center,” Swift explains, and patients who are early […]
Read More Closed by coronavirus, this Wallingford poetry bookstore found a way to open online
Paul Constant 