60 Comments

I hope you & Noah will post a transcript. Not everyone can hear a discussion.

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Yup, me too. I can hear a discussion, but can distill more information from a written transcript.

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Awesome! Hope that a recording will be made available for those that can’t catch it live

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Today??

I guess neither of you are football fans. You will get approximately zero people from Philly and DC watching. and lots of others who will be watching football.

For future reference, between conference championship games and the Super Bowl is a no football Sunday.

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New Yorkers will always be free around this time though.

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I live in DC and hate football 🤷🏻‍♀️

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This is true . I’m chomping at the bit for chiefs game and looking for fans to talk to online . It’s 4:36. Am . California go chiefs !!! Hell ya !!

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Paul --- I love what you are doing with the substack and it is a delight to learn more about your playful side and great writing. The music ain't that bad either!!

I immigrated here from South Africa in 1967 - I lived through (though as a white upper middle class male was not directly affected by the government ) what a one party police state looks and feels like. Censorship, banning, arbitrary jailings, deportations and several active progressive leaders 'committing suicide' by jumping out of the 10th floor of Marshall Square - the headquarters of the S African FBI - called the Special Branch. I never thought we could ever see anything like that here.

I trust and value your perspectives and also admire your leaving the TIMES - which has failed miserably in protecting democracy ---- Unlike the Rand Daily Mail in Johannesburg where journalists were brave, courageous and determined to expose what the government was doing - at their peril.

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It's where Musk learnt his trade I fear.

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I have another meeting at that time and can’t watch your live session but read the Mother Jones piece about your Times departure. It is good to see your work freer and more frequent on this platform. (I do find that subscribing to this and a half-dozen other excellent substacks plus my 365-day print Times subscription is getting pricey. But I can think of worse ways to spend.)

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I look at the NYT online everyday. But, I decided a month ago to subscribe to the WSJ to broaden my perspectives. One must challenge one's own beliefs.

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Cliché

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Hmmm... I stopped reading Noah when he wrote this last week: "Reshoring American industry has become a bipartisan policy objective — it has always been part of Donald Trump’s agenda, and Biden cared a lot about it as well." "... cared a lot"? Give me three examples of each. I'll give you one: Trump = Fosconn. Biden = CHIPS Act. Noah, please. Your slip is showing.

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gibberish

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Why are you even here? You have nothing to say about anything except exactly what you’re posting.

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Why are you even here? You have nothing to say about anything except exactly what you’re posting.

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Some of left the 5th grade, troll.

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Why are you even here? You have nothing to say about anything except exactly what you’re posting.

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C'mon man. We love and respect you but the Philly-Washington kickoff is at 3

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Commenting early in the hopes you’ll see: is there a way to capture the actual costs of our recent government (I’m not sure what word describes unnecessary impeachment hearings, the January 6 investigation and hearings, Muller’s work in term one, the dropped Jack Smith work, the lawsuit defenses for ‘the steal’, etc)? As a [insert any responsible civic role here] I can’t help but think of how better that money might have been used. Maybe healthcare? Quality free education? Food for everyone? I’m being unreasonable. But a study of that cost might be useful.

I realized we were forced into the legal battles, but I also am sad that what has seemed so self evident all along has, apparently, not been. If we can’t fix it for moral reasons, maybe we could because it’ll save money?

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3:00 pm EST?

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Fair question as I was thinking Noah lived in Cali.

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5dEdited

3PM EST per Noah's substack - 12 PST per redundancy redundancy

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Big decade long reader of Noah smith , he even blocked me once on accident and then was sweet and unblocked me . Noah is the economic leader voice of his generation . Love him . Sweet boy

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Marvelous combo + convo! Thanks so much!

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Have to watch football. Please record though!

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Should anyone need more information on how to listen to this (sounds great, by the way),go to Noah Smith's substack and he lays it all out. See you then!

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Retirees Should Always Make Paid Subscriptions Optional

One of the few moral pluses of American capitalism is that once you join the capitalist ranks - usually around age 65, you wind up with more wealth than you need to live comfortably without working. Consequently, I can afford to work without financial compensation. Freely sharing your wealth - of knowledge and experience - is in most cases, a far more valuable gift to society than just tossing money at charities. Doing so likely helps others more by helping to improve and enrich "their" lives.

I do not understand why fellow retirees - many wealthier than myself - charge people to subscribe to their Substack sites in order to benefit from their knowledge and experience. Granted, I too have a Substack, but it is free to access. Alas, I no longer post articles on it because a) my mostly Boomer subscribers told me that they prefer emailed posts, and b) because I reach more people occasionally publishing in the mainstream media as well - also for free. During my worklife, my publishing was mainly in refereed science journals that only colleagues and grad students had access to. There was no financial compensation for that either. Both then and now, I do enjoy the fulfillment that comes from sharing.

Retired Substack writers should keep in mind that they no longer "need" money. Like reverse Robin Hood, requiring paid subscriptions is taking from people who do need money simply to enrich themselves.

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As publishers shed any inhibitions they may have had in the past, more and more journalists are leaving or they're pushed out. While Substack and other platforms are nice, they're all getting crowded and there are simply too many good journalists without a newspaper or station to work at. Add the new influencer industry Krassensteins and their coterie of associates, Mueller She Wrote and her coterie, etc. (the more prominent cliques are lawyers, for the most part) and the field is just too crowded.

Journalists need to band together, find funding, and establish one or two new outlets before it's too late. Those whose name recognition (like yours) was already high will do just fine. I doubt the others will, at least not in any meaningful ways.

These are terrible times.

===

Things That Make You Go Hmm

https://rimaregasblog42.substack.com/p/things-that-make-you-go-hmm-blog42?r=bfvi

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Rima,

I agree for my wallet's sake. Please nothing like the FreePress.com though. That is a morass. But I have had several sharp encounters there that I could never have had without my subscription... so... yeah... I don't know. Welcome to the Fifth Estate.

Note we need a vibrant Fourth Estate to make it all work though. Someone besides bloggers need to record history outside the Federal Register.

Tim

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