Sweden's inequality surge, the drama of China's demographic transition, all-American "worm grunting" & Gadamer's bitter retirement
Great links, reading and images from Chartbook newsletter by Adam Tooze
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Lee Boon Wang Shipyard 1970s
How inequality surged in Sweden
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How China’s birth-rate collapsed
h/t Lion Hirth
US government spending on COVID vaccine development came, all told, to $2.5bn.
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The 12 viruses most likely to infect humans
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History of the I-Beam
There are few things more emblematic of construction and architecture than the iconic I-beam. The distinctive beam has been around for while, developed in 1849 by an engineer named Alphonse Halbou. If you're a savvy student of engineering, you probably already know that this isn't just a matter of style; it has a functional purpose as well.
Source: Popular Mechanics
The GOP on foreign policy is profoundly divided btw MAGA and non-MAGA camps
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As far as total factor productivity is concerned the 2010s were a lost decade for much of African agriculture
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The G20 have invited the African Union to join as a new member. But member-state defensiveness undermines the AU’s standing as a common voice for Africa.
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Over the last ten years, Brexit and the Corbyn, Johnson elections have flipped the electoral map in the UK with educational and partisan divides inverting
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Whilst preparing lecture the other day and realized that the Third Reich’s most famous propaganda movie to celebrate its Blitzkrieg tank-based victory in the West in 1940 featured not a German but a Czech 38(t) tank.
Legendary hermeneutic philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer had a bitter old age hoping that a private university might save Germany from the “epidemic” of analytical philosophy.
h/t Hannes Kerber
Worm grunting in modern America
Worm grunters head deep into the Apalachicola National Forest for another day's work. Why are they called worm grunters? Just watch.
And because this is America, there is a guy fact-checking the internet rumor that you can use a chainsaw as a “supercharged grunting iron”
How to make the Ultimate Electric Worm Getter!
Lee Boon wang Singapore River – Handling Cargo (1985)
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