Notes

In keeping with the notion of “last-place aversion”, the people who were a spot away from the bottom were the most likely to give the money to the person above them: rewarding the “rich” but ensuring that someone remained poorer than themselves. Those not at risk of becoming the poorest did not seem to mind falling a notch in the distribution of income nearly as much. This idea is backed up by survey data from America collected by Pew, a polling company: those who earned just a bit more than the minimum wage were the most resistant to increasing it.

16 notes

Each emperor produced coins with his name stamped on the face. When he died, the succeeding ruler would quickly declare that his predecessor’s coins were valueless; only new coins minted by the new emperor would be valid currency. Merchants suddenly saw “their capital evaporate in a single day, often silently mourning their losses before committing suicide,” according to the Ming Shi, the official history of the dynasty.

7 notes

The earth, he [Christopher Columbus] argued, was not perfectly round but “in the shape of a pear, which would all be very round, except for where the stem is, where it is higher, or as if someone had a very round ball, and in one part of it a woman’s nipple would be put there.” At the very tip of the nipple, so to speak, was “the Earthly Paradise, where nobody can go, except by divine will.

0 notes

The problem for Hutchison is that the energy in the Republican party today is not directed at how to make government work better. It is directed against government…