A Thinking Allowed special on 'love'. What are the origins of our notions of high romantic love? Was the post war period a 'golden age' for lifelong love? Has marriage for love now failed? Laurie Taylor hopes to finds some answers with the help of the social historian, Claire Langhamer, the philosopher, Pascal Bruckner, and the sociologist, Professor Mary Evans.Revised repeat.
22 January 2020
BBC4 In Our Time: The Siege of Paris 1870-71
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian war and the social unrest that followed, as the French capital was cut off from the rest of the country and food was scarce. When the French government surrendered Paris to the Prussians, power gravitated to the National Guard in the city and to radical socialists, and a Commune established in March 1871 with the red flag replacing the trilcoleur. The French government sent in the army and, after bloody fighting, the Communards were defeated by the end of May 1871.
VICE: Trump’s Obsession with Toilets Is Less of a Random Rant Than It Appears
This focus on flushing seemed at first blush like just another one of those weird fixations that habitually grips a president with the attention span of a TV remote. But the conservative war on toilets—or the war on behalf of the toilets of yesteryear—both predates Trump and lines up with a surprisingly large chunk of Trumpian grievance politics. Denouncing toilets, lightbulbs, and sinks as worse than they used to be is a way to both tap into a powerful strain of nostalgia and express contempt for the regulatory state. [...]
Days after Trump complained about dishwashers in Milwaukee, the Department of Energy announced a rule change that introduced a set of changes that will limit the government's ability to set new efficiency standards on appliances. "Existing standards are saving the typical household about $500 per year. That's an accumulation of standards developed over the past 30 years that are now resulting in more efficient appliances and devices on the market today," said Andrew deLaski, the executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. "This means that it'll be much harder to keep improving those standards and adding to those savings in the future." [...]
Making appliances more efficient used to be seen as a relatively uncontroversial good. The first bill setting appliance standards was signed by Ronald Reagan in 1987 after passing a Democrat-controlled Congress on bipartisan lines. In 1992, George H.W. Bush signed legislation requiring toilets to use 1.6 gallons per flush, and in 2007 George W. Bush approved a law that phased out particularly energy-inefficient lightbulbs. These regulations have made a difference: For instance, according to Appliance Standards Awareness Project data, fridges have gotten more energy efficient even as they've gotten bigger and cheaper in inflation-adjusted dollars. Consumer Reports notes that dishwashers use half the water they did 20 years ago, which also means a reduction in energy required to heat that water, though the tradeoff is they take longer to run through a cycle. And while newer energy-saving lightbulbs like LEDs are more expensive than traditional incandescent bulbs, they also last much much longer and save consumers money on their electricity bills.
Rare Earth: Why Okinawans Live Longer Than You
Welcome to 2020! I'm back after a bit of a forced hiatus. Christmas and my stage show were crazy busy, so I had to take a little time off. But I'm back! Unfortunately not on my favourite video from Japan, but I wanted to save the best for last.
Quartz: What interest rates dating back to 1311 tell us about today’s global economy
That insight comes courtesy of a fascinating working paper by economist Paul Schmelzing, which reconstructs real interest rates in advanced economies dating back to 1311. The study—what the author says is the first construction of a dataset of high-frequency GDP-weighted real rates (i.e. the difference between the nominal yield and inflation)—features a staggeringly rich collection of records culled from diaries, account books, local archives, and municipal registers and includes everything from Medici bank loans to France’s “Revolutionary loans” to the US government.
While the data available from past eras isn’t comprehensive, what it suggests is a steady fall in the average real rate since the late 1400s—a decline that spans centuries, asset classes, political systems, and monetary regimes. The slope of that trend puts long-term real rates on track to hit near-zero levels at some point in the past 20 or so years. [...]
Between 1313 and 2018, around a fifth of advanced economies were experiencing negative long-term yields, on average. In keeping with Schmelzing’s larger finding, that share has risen over time. However, the frequency of these episodes seems to be rising. For example, the average share from 1313 to 1750 was 18.6%, compared to 20.8% from 1880 to 2018. Since 2009, that share stands at 25.9% (after an unusual spate of 0% between 1984 and 2001). [...]
Then came the moral backlash. Starting in the early 1400s, states around Europe instituted a rash of “sumptuary laws” banning myriad forms of conspicuous consumption. Schmelzing hypothesizes that the luxury retail boom sucked funds away from debt markets. After sumptuary laws finally succeeded in suppressing consumer spending, that trend reversed. Though there’s no micro-level evidence on savings rates to check this against, cautions Schmelzing, this surmise is consistent with narrative accounts and research on longer-term wealth evolution. As savings rates began climbing in the late 1400s, money flowed back into bonds, pushing down rates—and setting off the centuries-long decline that continues still today.
euronews: 'Faithless elector': Supreme Court will hear case that could change how presidents are chosen
The answer to the question could be a decisive one: are the electors who cast the actual Electoral College ballots for president and vice-president required to follow the results of the popular vote in their states? Or are they free to vote as they wish? [...]
More than half the states have laws requiring electors to obey the results of the popular vote in their states and cast their ballots accordingly. The problem of what are known as "faithless electors" has not been much of an issue in American political history, because when an elector refuses to follow the results of a state's popular vote, the state usually simply throws the ballot away. [...]
States are free to choose their electors however they want, the court said, and can even require electors to pledge their loyalty to their political parties. But once the electors are chosen and report in December to cast their votes as members of the electoral college, they are fulfilling a federal function, and a state's authority has ended.
euronews: Is flight-shaming helping resurrect Europe's overnight trains?
It is a risk that is paying off, Rieder claims. He said passenger numbers were up 10% last year and has put the increase down to climate-conscious travellers. [...]
In Sweden, home of teenage activist Greta Thunberg and the flight-shaming movement, airport passenger numbers were down last year for the first time in a decade. There is a similar trend in Germany.
There is no evidence that this decrease is solely down to people feeling guilty about flying, but experts say it’s played a part. [...]
Earlier this month Swedavia, which operates 10 of the country's busiest airports, revealed a 4% fall in passengers last year, compared with 2018. International travellers fell by 2% but those taking domestic flights by 9%.
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