Spice and Wolf
I am shame
The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton. It explains Modern Monetary Theory in a way that doesn’t give you tired head like most economics texts. A key takeaway from MMT is that all the hysteria about the national deficit and debt is nothing to worry about at all, and is (surprise!) just political theater used to slash social programs and push privatization.
I don’t know about MMT, but the deficit is most definitely deliberately engineered. The same people complaining about it started it with tax cuts and increased spending, and their solution is not to cut that spending, not to adjust those tax cuts they implemented, but to cut back on government spending on things they have a bee in their bonnet about. Its obviously engineered so they can use it as a cudgel against any public spending.
Currently reading manufacturing consent, have heard many “chomsky is just a lib” takes, but I think it’s a pretty good read if you’re willing to dive into details of the cold war (like an alleged plot by the KGB to kill the pope which was just propaganda)
That’s just angry teenagers saying that.
The Bulgarian Plot is interesting, the people promoting that were Claire Sterling and Michael Ledeen.
Sterling had been a disinformation agent for the British in the 1940s and 50s and by the 1980s was banding about claims that the Soviets were behind every single terrorist organization and every act of terrorism and responsible for every revolutionary group and war that had been going on since the 1970s and it was all a massive plot to destabilize the west and undermine the USA - her work was being cited by CIA chief and other administration officials who refused to believe CIA analysts telling them not only was there was no basis for her work but some of it was based on stories the CIA had itself planted in the foreign press!
Ledeen is a long time neocon grifter who may be an agent of the Italian military intelligence, SISMI, or even the P2 Masons. I shit you not. He worked with a SISMI agent promoting anti-Carter smear “billygate” in 1980 trying to claim is party animal brother Billy Carter was some how connected to Kaddafi. He was connected to Iran Contra through introducing Manucher Ghorbanifar to several of its players. In the 2000s he was a big supporter of invading Iraq and has connections to the Niger Letter forgery. Today he promotes the “clash of civilizations” view positing America must lead the world in a war against Iran.
Cryptography papers, and also Robspierre for when I get around to the next history of socialism effortpost I’ve been doing every week.
