Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

JW Mason

@jwmason.bsky.social

15K followers 2.8K following 5.3K posts

Associate professor of economics, John Jay College-CUNY, senior fellow at the Groundwork Collaborative. Blog and other writing: jwmason.org. Study economics with me: https://johnjayeconomics.org. Anti-war Keynesian, liberal socialist, Brooklyn dad.

johnjayeconomics.org.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 12d

Coming this spring. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Against Money

A powerful deconstruction of humanity’s most influential invention, from the acclaimed economists J. W. Mason and Arjun Jayadev. Money is unavoidably fundamental to our daily lives. It lurks behind ...

press.uchicago.edu

8 35 120

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 1d

But the other side of this is that he has not run away from more controversial and left-coded positions.

1 4

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 1d

Sorry, it's Terraforming Mars.

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 2d

I was not aware of this.

Brandon Bishop @brandontbishop.bsky.social · 2d

NYT Company's board of directors:
-CEO of GoDaddy
-CPO of Roblox
-Former CFO of Etsy
-Former head of Pandora Media
-CFO of Mr. Beast's company
-CMO of AirBnB

There are only 5 people representing the Sulzberger family or publishing related interests.

1 2 21

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 2d

100%. To me, Terraforming falls into that last category - there's something very visually satisfying about seeing Mars gradually turn from brown to green, which comes thru (for me anyway) more strongly with a physical board.

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 2d

We tried Arcs but it was a bit too unforgiving and high-conflict.

1 1

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 2d

Terraforming is a nearly perfect boardgame imo. Incorporates the theme beautifully, has a nice rhythm where sometimes you're doing your own thing and sometimes racing to a shared goal, there's a lot of variation through the cards but the core is simple, you always have interesting choices to make.

2 1

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 2d

I don't agree, personally. I find it much easier to keep track of everything going on with the physical board and cards in front of me.

Reposted by JW Mason

George Pearkes @peark.es · 2d

There were lots of things the Biden White House did that were extremely good but they didn’t get credit for because of (to varying degrees) ideology, propagandization, mendaciousness, and abject stupidity.

Nothing involving the Middle East is on that list.

Andrew Exum @exum.bsky.social · 2d

This week has confirmed my suspicion that Biden’s Middle East policies will look worse, and will be even more embarrassing for Democrats, with the passage of time.

11 32 270

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 2d

Unless you’re Tharsis, cities aren’t necessarily that great, imo.

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 2d

Terraforming Mars.

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 2d

Honestly this is one that almost everyone who plays modern boardgames has played. Now if I’d posted a picture of Inis, say….

2 2

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 2d

If nothing else, at least we are living in the golden age of board games.

7 3 50

Reposted by JW Mason

Amanda Katz @katzish.bsky.social · 3d

The Antifa’s Daughter. I can see the cover now — it’s a woman’s head seen from the back with her fist raised in front of a burning skyline

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 3d

I’m going to be very disappointed if my local bookstore doesn’t have a novel called “The Girlfriend of Antifa” out on its front display table sometime next year. Or it could be a short story collection.

5 3 47

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 3d

1 2 23

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 4d

What’s the objection to LFI?

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 4d

nope! (tho the two senses overlap in this case)

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 4d

Just checked - I have 36 tabs open at the moment. But that’s low, I went through and closed a bunch just recently.

Dom White @domw.bsky.social · 4d

I don’t understand how it’s possible to have fewer than, say, 20 tabs open at all times.

There are just too many things on the internet that I’ll definitely get around to reading at some point!

YouGov @yougov.co.uk · 4d

How many browsing tabs do you typically have open?*

1: 6%
2-5: 54%
6-10: 14%
11-20: 8%
21-30: 2%
More than 30: 3%

*across all windows, on desktop/laptop

yougov.co.uk/topics/techn...

3 12

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 4d

A dumb gotcha from a right winger tells us nothing about the validity of liberal (not a pejorative!) arguments for taking race and gender into account in various contexts.

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 4d

I am genuinely a bit puzzled that this they have not done this.

Alan Mygatt-Tauber @amtappeals.bsky.social · 4d

Every time a GOP Senator blames the shutdown on Democrats, a reporter should ask why they don’t just eliminate the filibuster for budget bills, like they just did for block confirmations.

3 3 22

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 4d

I recommend deleting this.

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 4d

Settled gains for personal liberty and equality were reversed, substantive democracy was rolled back while keeping the formal electoral process unchanged, and racial resentment and an idealized past were used to mobilize a broad constituency for a program that directly benefited only a small elite.

1 4 19

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 4d

Well obviously. Any solution to this problem will come from us, not the authorities.

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 4d

This is one of the hardest to acknowledge truths in American politics.

ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 4d

he probably doesn't! most American police forces are some combo of rogue paramilitary and criminal gangster conspiracy! but that's all the more reason to start standing up some loyal formations bsky.app/profile/kitc...

kitconway.bsky.social @kitconway.bsky.social · 4d

Pritzker seems to be semi waving the white flag on that and acting like he doesn't control his state police. Hope he reconsiders.

1 11 76

Reposted by JW Mason

Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 4d

Perhaps not the main point but I always hate it when people view it as a sign of failure when poorer countries grow faster. There is absolutely no intrinsic reason why Poland should have lower income than the UK or any other EU country forever, and that means it will have to grow faster sometimes

Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 4d

"15 years ago, Polish workers came here to find opportunity. Now Poland is growing twice as fast as we are," says Kemi Badenoch.

Any ideas what may have happened in the interim?

15 50 230

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 4d

When I was trying to come up with historical precedents in these threads last spring, the most salient element of the regime seemed to be Musk and DOGE. But looking at the situation now, there's a more obvious and closer to home precedent: the end of Reconstruction.

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · Feb 5

A couple more precedents to think about.

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · Feb 5

Thinking about historical parallels. People talk about coups and autogolpes, the fascist seizure of power in the 1930s, and there are resemblances. But there are other models we could think about.

1 6 25