Cover page, Wealth of Nations, First Edition 1776
250 years ago today, Adam Smith published An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
Contrary to popular belief, it is not a proto-libertarian paean to free markets, but a blistering critique of vested interests, corporate power and the British Empire. Some favorite bits:
If I could find the tops to the Tupperware, I would be a happy man. Where do they go? Are they with the socks?
Trump administration officials appear flummoxed, not just by the war on Iran, which (whoa) but by the existence of video. With their own words. From yesterday.
You've got to really F up to have 59% of Americans disapprove of a military action against Iran.
I think about this a lot.
Gorton and Denton was a claymation franchise from the 1990s/2000s featuring a clueless chap from Clacton-upon-Sea and a buffoon with bad hair and worse choices.
when i grow up, i want to be @alanbeattie.bsky.social. Or at least be allowed to write like him.
www.ft.com/content/57d9...
It's cool how the Trump administration keeps filling roles that require the trust and respect of the American people with total cranks who no one in their right mind would even want to sit next to on a bus.
Chart of the day - from a column by @katie0martin.ft.com on the death of the Trump trade. Chart by @raydouglas.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/cfdc...
"We're still trying to reproduce IEEPA. We could replace it in the aggregate."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gpb...
Berzelius Windrip gets longer-winded
I adore Sinclair Lewis's *It Can't Happen Here*, not least for naming the protagonist Berzelius.
But this manifesto from the good candidate just sends me every time, esp today.
Apologies, but have to share this letter from Sen. Cantwell to Bessent re: refunds. She put so much more care and rigor into this letter than they did into the tariffs in the first place that it makes you laugh.
www.cantwell.senate.gov/imo/media/do...
I was at a couple of different Spanish hospitals this morning (long story) and can attest: There is a galloping problem with people *using* healthcare, not just the over-60 crowd.
I am told that "grit your teeth" is apretar los dientes.
I can say that falls short of the mark.
Agrietar, maybe.
Violentar, absolutely.
I 1000% guarantee you, there is a market for the over-50-crowd which is like massage porn only they genuinely focus on the backrubs.
I'm old enough to remember the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Okay, it went down, after like FIVE HUNDRED YEARS. But it had 19,000 ethnicities, 11 bajillion languages, and 13 septimus hundred religions. Their drill sergeants were weary. Either way, it lasted longer, and did more than South Africa or Musk
They label Petri as humor, but that is too narrow. This is the best take on this administration.
www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...
From having been the party of free markets and rule of law, the GOP has now gone to be the party of a pedophilia mafia, tariffs and protectionism and racism.
Do you really believe that you can win elections with such a program?
Sometimes you fall on stuff that is explosive.
www.vice.com/en/article/a...
Cool. Now do Russia's shadow fleet. It's been over a year since you lifted a finger, and that wasn't even your finger.
www.state.gov/releases/off...
No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition.
Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
What do they teach at Wharton
A lot of people may have thought that Jerome Powell only did good hostage videos, but he is also a stone-cold killer. Reiterating the dual mandate, underscoring the SCOTUS importance [Cook], and highlighting that the dollar is Bessent's problem is curb-stomping.
For many years, ecologists warned that the white-guy-blinking meme was endangered, but nature thrives, and we now have a new one.
I say this as a PSA: If you are arguing before the Supreme Court and can't hold my attention, you are not winning over the justices.
“I haven’t been able to find any wind farms in China”
Ackshually, 30-year yields are spiking.
There is nothing people in Davos are more interested in than Macron's glasses and U.S. new housing builds. (There aren't, because of the lumber and steel tariffs and all but whatever.) ((Also, there was a plan for housing but she lost *in a landslide* which was one of the closest contests ever.))
The battleship slobbering is fun.
This, though, is the definitive piece on the insanity of wrong-making the USN.
washingtonmonthly.com/2026/01/21/t...
China's installed wind power is 16 percent of nameplate power
qazinform.com/news/chinas-...
