StephenKMackSD's Blog

Newspaper Reader.

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Jun 10, 2026

Editor: These first paragarpghs of Stephens eviseration of Graham Platner porvides Stephens with an opportunity to sound the notes of Cotton Mather, of another time and place in American History? Reader do I exagerate? this self-serving apologist needs to deflect the from the crimes of the Gaza Genocide? And the crimes of agains Lebanon? Mr. Stephens finds Graham Platner as the perfect atitdote to the crimes of Netanyahu and his cadre? I quote Stephens paragraph as demonstrative of his ‘methology of deceit’ !

It isn’t clear what effect, if any, Graham Platner’s multiplying personal scandals will have on his chances in the Maine Democratic primary that’s occurring as I write this, to say nothing of November’s general election against Susan Collins, the incumbent Republican senator. But there are at least two good, if contradictory, possibilities.

The first is absolution — not only for Platner, but for every nominee or candidate, Republican or Democratic, with a blemished personal history — on the grounds that we elect or install people in high office to achieve the results we desire, not to serve as paragons of moral rectitude. If nothing else, this could make our politics less repellent to talented if imperfect people who now steer clear of public service because they don’t want to put themselves or their families through the inevitable media inquisition that comes with every campaign.

The second is consistent judgment of anyone, Democrat or Republican, who falls far short of clear and unyielding standards of moral conduct. Perhaps this will finally re-erect the political barriers that formerly prevented shameless people, our current president not least, from degrading our politics and setting a putrescent example of what is — and what isn’t — necessary to reach the high places of American life.

What ought to stop is what we have now: inconsistent standards selectively applied according to our political bias.

Lest you’ve been wintering in Antarctica, here’s what’s lately been learned about Platner, the 41-year-old combat veteran and oyster farmer:

That his wife had told a campaign aide that he had been trading sexually explicit messages with six women, and perhaps as many as a dozen, before the beginning of his political run. That a former girlfriend, Lyndsey Fifield, alleges that he lied when he claimed he did not know a chest tattoo he had gotten during his military service strongly resembled an official insignia of the Nazi SS, and that he had once referred to it as “my Totenkopf.” That Fifield also alleges that he had once “twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn’t get out” and that she later described him as “the most toxic literally abusive man on earth.” That she said he referred to women as “hatchet wounds,” using a crude word for female genitalia. That other women romantically connected to Platner also described unsettling behavior.

…

Newspaper Reader.

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Jun 09, 2026

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Z6DC4AjTG2M?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

Newspaper Reader.

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Jun 09, 2026

Good morning and welcome to White House Watch. Let’s dive into:

• The tensions between Trump and Netanyahu
• Trump booed at Madison Square Garden
• The Maine primary looms

The relationship between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu has been as tight as it has been volatile — and reached a new inflection point early this month, as James Shotter, our Jerusalem correspondent, and I examine in this article.

Who calls the shots? Trump and Netanyahu clash over diverging goals in Middle East war

Editor: Under the rubric of Poltitcal Melodrama:

After a new cycle of escalation in the Middle East, the US president and the Israeli prime minister seem to be on diverging paths, with Trump looking for an elusive exit strategy and peace deal with Tehran and Netanyahu seemingly standing in the way.

“I call the shots. I call all the shots. [Netanyahu] doesn’t call the shots,” Trump said in an interview with the FT on Sunday. At the time, Iran was striking Israel for the first time since the early April ceasefire, in response to its attacks on Hizbollah in Lebanon.

Israel then retaliated by striking Iran over the ensuing hours, but the US did not participate in those attacks, only launching defensive interceptors to protect its own troops in Israel from Iranian fire in the exchange, a US defence official told the FT.

US officials insist the relationship between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu is as strong as ever. But tensions have been apparent in recent days © AP

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Editor: James Politi’s shift of focus:

By Monday, after Trump called on Israel and Iran to “immediately stop shooting”, the escalation had stopped. Trump spoke to Netanyahu again. US officials insisted their relationship remained as strong as ever. But the tensions between Washington and Jerusalem were apparent, exposing the pressure Netanyahu is facing domestically not to be seen to be caving to Trump.

Editor: Under the rubric of ‘This dynamic bodes poorly…’

This dynamic bodes poorly not only for the negotiations between the US and Iran over a peace deal, but also signals that any agreement could still be exceedingly fragile and subject to Netanyahu potentially jeopardising it again with his actions against Iran and its proxies, especially Hizbollah.

“Trump is basically trying to show the American public that he’s trying to keep the war from re-escalating and he’s trying to keep America from getting involved again,” said Dahlia Scheindlin, a Tel Aviv-based pollster and political analyst. “And Netanyahu looks good to his domestic audience because he’s defying Trump.”

Editor: What James Politi’s misses by a mile, is the stark fact that neither Trump nor Netanyahu are in charge! Iran is in the drivers seat! James Politi and The Finacial Times political chatter failes to mention this inelutable fact. No form of the self-congratulation can mask James Politi’s stumblins in the dark! This is ‘The Financial Times’ much more to follow…

Newspaper Reader.

Political Observer.

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Jun 08, 2026

Her books, arranged in chronological order, include: [1, 2]

• Pier Luigi Nervi (1960) – A monograph on the Italian structural engineer and architect.
• Classic New York: Georgian Gentility to Greek Elegance (1964) – An architectural guide and historical study of New York’s classic buildings.
• Kicked a Building Lately? (1976) – A compilation of her incisive critiques regarding architecture, urban planning, and historic preservation.
• Goodbye History, Hello Hamburger: An Anthology of Architectural Delights and Disasters (1986) – A collection of essays celebrating great architecture while lamenting modern sprawl and poor preservation.
• Architecture, Anyone? Cautionary Tales of the Building Art (1986) – Reflections and cautionary tales examining the state of modern and contemporary building.
• Will They Ever Finish Bruckner Boulevard? (1989) – A curated selection of her journalism dealing with the urban landscape, construction, and planning in New York.
• The Tall Building Artistically Reconsidered: The History of a Skyscraper (1992/1993) – A detailed historical and critical analysis of the skyscraper.
• The Unreal America: Architecture and Illusion (1997) – A sharp critique of how modern American environments, from theme parks to historical facades, replaced reality with fake authenticity.
• Frank Lloyd Wright (2004) – A celebrated short biography exploring the life and work of the legendary architect for the Penguin Lives series.
• On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change (2008) – A sweeping anthology of her lifelong writings on building arts, preservation, and architectural trends. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

For more information on these publications or to read reviews, you can browse her catalog on Goodreads or find copies through ThriftBooks. [1, 2]

If you are looking to start reading her work, let me know:

• Are you interested in skyscraper history or general city planning?
• Do you prefer essay anthologies or biographies?

I can recommend the perfect book to start with!

11 sites

• Books by Ada Louise Huxtable (Author of Frank Lloyd Wright)Frank Lloyd Wright (Penguin Lives) Ada Louise Huxtable. by Ada Louise Huxtable. 3.79 754 ratings 96 reviews. On Architecture: Coll…
• Ada Louise Huxtable: books, biography, latest update – Amazon.comAda Louise Huxtable * Best Seller. Architecture Criticism. Quick look. Frank Lloyd Wright: A Life (Penguin Lives) Part of: Penguin…

Amazon.com

Ada Louise Huxtable, Architecture Critic | American Experience – PBS

• Mar 18, 2019 — A pioneering architecture critic, Ada Louise Huxtable has written for the New York Timesand the Wall Street Journal. She was award…

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Discussion about this post

Zionism is murderious!!!!!

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Jun 08, 2026

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/N7bRtT1xjJI?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

Reader its like reading Vanity Fair defore the death of Dominick Dunne?

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Jun 08, 2026

Design’s Bull Market, N.I.L. on the Hill, Prada Futurism

Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon guide to Puck’s best new reporting. Here’s what you need to know… and stick around for Bill’s exclusive interview with 60 Minutes’s Lesley Stahl.

• Dry Powder: After the firing of several top 60 Minutes journalists and producers at the end of May, legendary correspondent Lesley Stahl faced a difficult choice: stay with the storied newsmagazine, or let this be the end of the line. Bill Cohan sits down with Stahl to discuss the hardest chapter of her 50-year career and the behind-the-scenes conversation at CBS News. [Read More]
  
  
  
  In the Room: Just before the weekend, Stahl and fellow correspondents Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim announced they would return to 60 Minutes—though their leaked memo was hardly a vote of confidence in the Weiss/Bilton administration. Dylan Byers reveals an earlier draft that was even more critical. [Read More

Political Observer defends Historical Memory!

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Jun 08, 2026

Reader recall that ‘Eurozine ‘was the propoganda arm of the 2014 Ukainian coup?

Posted on October 9, 2025 by stephenkmacksd

Political Observer defends Historical Memory!

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Oct 02, 2025

Reader recall that ‘Eurozine ‘was the propoganda arm of the 2014 Ukainian coup!

Political Observer defends Historical Memory!

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Mar 05, 2025

The present day Apologists for the 2014 Ukraian Coup have elided from History this document authored by Neo-Con Timothy Snyder, and his fellow travelers, named in the section named ‘Locations’!

Ukraine: Thinking Together Kyiv, 15-19 May Manifesto

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Locations:

The Kyiv-Mohyla Academy is located in the Podil’ neighborhood, on Kontraktova Square; the entrance to the Center for Polish and European Studies is on Voloska Street 8/5; the Culture and Arts Centre is on Illinska Street 9. The Diplomatic Academy is in central Kyiv, at Velyka Zhytomyrska Street 2. The Hotel Ukraine is on Instytutska Street 4. The InterContinental Hotel is on Velyka Zhytomyrs’ka Street 2A. Practical solidarity: This gathering was the initiative of Leon Wieseltier of The New Republic and Timothy Snyder of Yale University and was made possible by the willingness of colleagues to heed their call and agree to participate in great haste, and by the creativity and hard work of Tatiana Zhurzhenko and Oksana Forostyna. A number of partner institutions helped transform an idea into an event: the Batory Foundation, the Embassy of Canada, the Embassy of France, the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Embassy of the Republic of Poland, the Embassy of the United States of America, the European Endowment for Democracy, the European Forum for Ukraine, the Network of European Cultural Journals Eurozine, the Goethe-Institut, the Institut Français d’Ukraine, the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), the International Renaissance Foundation, the Ukrainian cultural journal Krytyka, the National University “Kyiv Mohyla Academy,” the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, the National Endowment for Democracy, The New Republic, the Open Ukraine Foundation, the PinchukArtCentre, the Ukrainian Institute for Holocaust Studies “Tkuma,” the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter, and the Visual Culture Research Center.

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Editor: Reader here is the latest iteration of Neo-Con Propaganda

EUROZINE

Making Putin happy again

Mykola Riabchuk 24 February 2025

https://www.eurozine.com/making-putin-happy-again/?pdf

Since Donald Trump’s call with Vladimir Putin on 12 February and a series of other diplomatic moves aimed at kicking off Russia–Ukraine peace talks, the war in Ukraine has returned to the top of the international media agenda. For outsiders, observing the war from a safe distance like an increasingly monotonous TV series, the plot has acquired finally a new turn, reviving flagging interest and sparking intense debate. But for Ukrainians, Trump’s ‘peacemaking’ initiatives are just another reminder of their subaltern, ‘pawn’ role on the geopolitical chessboard. The writing was already on the wall after Trump suggested that Ukraine ‘may be Russian someday’ (a reason to exploit Ukrainian rare earth minerals in advance); after vice president JD Vance insisted that ‘this war is between Russia and Ukraine’ (and that US military interference would not ‘advance American interests and security’); and after defence secretary Pete Hegseth stated that Ukraine should abandon its push to reclaim all Russian-occupied territory and forget about joining NATO. To add insult to injury, the US responded to Volodymyr Zelensky’s earlier offer of privileged access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals in return for support with a virtually colonial demand for almost everything for almost nothing in return. The Daily Telegraph, which obtained a draft of the pre-decisional contract, called it ‘a new Versailles’: ‘If this draft were accepted, Trump’s demands would amount to a higher share of Ukrainian GDP than reparations imposed on Germany at the Versailles Treaty.’ Volodymyr Zelensky in Munich, February 14, 2025. Official State Department photo by Freddie Everett. Source: Wikimedia Commons Normally, the paper pointed out, such terms are imposed on aggressor states defeated in war. But Trump ‘seems willing to let Russia of the hook entirely’. Besides the purely economic issues, there was also the moral question whether it would be ‘honourable to treat a victim nation in this fashion after it has held the battle line for the liberal democracies at enormous sacrifice for three years. Who really has a debt to whom, may one ask?’

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Editor under the rubric of : ‘A new Molotov-Ribbentrop pact’, at the least ‘The Munich Agreement’ as so often used by Neo-Cons of the ‘West’ is absent! Mykola Riabchuk essay lends a more nuanced Historical tone?

Unsurprisingly, Trump’s ‘peacemaking’ initiatives were met in Ukraine with a mixture of anger, despair and black humour. Zelensky cancelled his visit to Saudi Arabia, scheduled for 20 February, two days after the Rubio–Lavrov meeting in Riyadh. He stated openly that he did not want to legitimize that meeting and its ‘decisions’. The fact that he was not invited to these talks, nor even consulted by the American partners beforehand, does not bode well for Ukraine’s eventual role in ‘big boys’ conversation. As an old saying goes, ‘if you are not at the table then you are on the menu’. While Zelensky tries to keep a brave face in bad game, Ukrainian media are overwhelmed with sarcasm, metaphors (the copulation of a frog with a snake might be the most graphic) and caustic cartoons. One of them – featuring Trump as a bride and Putin as a groom – bore a striking resemblance to cartoons showing a newly-wed Hitler and Stalin in 1939. As a Ukrainian publicist put it succinctly: ‘It’s not Munich 2.0. It’s more like a new Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.’ ‘We are entering a difficult, surreal state’, declared Olga Rudenko, the editor-in-chief of the Kyiv Independent. ‘Our key ally, led by Donald Trump’s new administration, is turning against us and siding with our enemy.’ But the danger of Trump’s reckless cowboy diplomacy goes far beyond the fate of just Ukraine. His susceptibility to Putin’s arguments (partly because of ignorance, partly because of affinity) threaten the whole European continent if not the global order as a whole. After Vance’s speech in Munich and Trump’s arrogant and nonsensical statements the day after, Europeans can no longer neglect a responsibility that they have habitually outsourced to American partners. How far and how effectively this motley crew of thirtyplus nations will move remains to be seen. But at least it gives Ukraine a chance to survive in the new environment, even though it would require even more painful efforts – both diplomatic and military. So far, the Ukrainians have not blinked – as both Zelensky’s and society’s reaction to the mounting challenges indicate

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Editor: The final paragraph of Mykola Riabchuk essay is a daming repudiation of ‘Western Values’! Is there a possible cutural, political affinity between Mykola Riabchuk and Aleksandr Dugin?

“The Globalists are the Racists:” Russian Analyst Aleksandr Dugin on the Loss of Cultural Identities”

Ignorance about Ukraine and the region in general is something that Trump shares with most international politicians and intellectuals educated in the framework of Russian ‘imperial knowledge’, which is normalized in both international academia and popular culture. A much bigger problem, however, is Trump’s mindset, which has little to do with rule of law and liberal democracy and a lot with the realpolitik favoured by dictators confident that might makes right, and that international politics is primarily about accumulation of power and wealth. Ignorance can be enlightened and mitigated, but cynical authoritarianism is very unlikely to change. This means that moralistic discussions with Trump and his lieutenants will not help Volodymyr Zelensky and his European partners. Instead, they must speak from a position of strength. This is perhaps the only point on which they fully agree with the American president.

Political Observer

Old Socialist just can stop thinking about stupid Third Rate Comics, in American Life!

stephenkmacksd.com/

Jun 07, 2026

(Journalist and author Robert Scheer is a prominent progressive critic of quantitative easing (QE), which he views as a massive wealth transfer from working-class taxpayers to Wall Street. [1, 2] Robert Scheer’ comments, after John Oliver)

John Oliver has not dedicated a standalone Last Week Tonight main segment entirely to Quantitative Easing (QE). However, he has touched on the topic tangentially during broader financial and macroeconomic discussions. [1, 2, 3]

John Oliver and the National Debt

During his episode on the National Debt, Oliver explored how central banking, federal spending, and economic interventions work. Economists and online communities often point to this episode when discussing the implications of quantitative easing, as Oliver breaks down how U.S. government debt works, who holds it, and why a country’s debt operates differently from a personal credit card. [1, 2, 3]

For insights into the context and ongoing discourse from the segment:

• Read the community reactions and economic breakdowns on the AskEconomics Reddit Thread to see how his take on federal spending aligns with quantitative easing.
• Watch the full The National Debt: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver YouTube Video for his breakdown of macroeconomic debt, central banks, and government funding.

Third-Party Candidates and Quantitative Easing

In a segment fact-checking the 2016 Green Party platform, Oliver discussed the Federal Reserve. During the segment, he criticized the economic feasibility of using quantitative easing (or “printing money”) to unilaterally cancel student debt, a claim that sparked significant debate among economists. [1, 2, 3]

• Review the Business Insider John Oliver and Third Party Candidates Article for details on his critique of third-party monetary policy proposals.

If you want to understand more about the video where he discusses the National Debt and Federal Reserve policies, let me know:

• Would you like an explanation of how quantitative easing works generally?
• Do you want to dive deeper into the differences between federal debt and consumer debt?

I can provide a straightforward breakdown of how these monetary tools function.

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Journalist and author Robert Scheer is a prominent progressive critic of quantitative easing (QE), which he views as a massive wealth transfer from working-class taxpayers to Wall Street. [1, 2]

Core Critiques by Robert Scheer

• Corporate Bailout: Scheer argues that by buying toxic mortgage-backed securities, the Federal Reserve shielded financial elites from the consequences of their reckless behavior.
• Mugging Main Street: He asserts that QE rewarded the banks responsible for the 2008 financial crisis, while millions of everyday Americans were left to face foreclosure and economic hardship.
• Systemic Inequality: Scheer contends that flooding the financial sector with cheap money inflated asset prices and corporate profits without addressing the structural poverty and wage stagnation affecting working-class Americans. [1, 2]

Published Works and Context

• “The Great American Stickup”: In his book, The Great American Stickup, Scheer explores how both Republican and Democratic administrations deregulated the financial sector, paving the way for the Fed’s QE policies to reward the architects of the financial crash.
• Journalism: As a contributing editor for The Nation and the founder of Truthdig, he frequently criticized leaders—from the Bush era through the Obama administration—who championed these monetary policies. You can explore his commentary further in The Nation archives. [1, 2, 3]

For a detailed look at Scheer’s journalistic perspective, read his essays like It Wasn’t David Stockman Who Wrecked the Economy on The Nation. [1]

Mariana Mazzucato : Founding Director and Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value | UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP). (Read added information)

stephenkmacksd.com/

Jun 05, 2026

Posted on July 17, 2024 by stephenkmacksd

Political Observer comments.

The Financial Times:

Opinion: European Union

Headline : Starmer has a golden opportunity to reset relations with Europe

Sub-headline: Hosting the EPC summit at Blenheim, the prime minister can make good on his manifesto pledge

https://www.ft.com/content/71d20269-cf50-47f9-9ae4-edb891defddf

The Financial Times hired Anand Menon, the director of UK in a Changing Europe to provide a rather colorless apologetic for Starmer’s newly elected government:

If you’re as old as me, you’ll remember it well. A new prime minister, beaming from ear to ear, charming fellow European leaders and beating them all as they cycled through the streets of Amsterdam. Tony Blair’s diplomatic debut was an unalloyed triumph. Twenty-seven years on, another new Labour prime minister has a chance to shine among his neighbours, this time on home soil.

The European Political Community — that travelling circus of 47 European states — arrives at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire on Thursday. Sir Keir Starmer will be chairing it.

Editor: some selective quotation of Menon’s essay:

…

The meeting will give Starmer a chance to showcase a “reset” of UK relations with its neighbours.

…

Tone matters, and it will be striking — and perhaps a little discombobulating — to watch the interactions with his European peers of a prime minister who does not see the relationship with the EU as inherently competitive or zero sum.

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Domestically, Starmer rules supreme. While the machinations of Conservative leadership candidates provide some light relief, they matter not a jot for national policy.

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The devil will be in the detail: can the UK persuade the EU to relax rules blocking British participation in schemes such as the European Defence Fund that are intended to foster greater collaboration in the development of military capabilities?

…



Will talks over a veterinary agreement drag on as the European Commission haggles over minutiae? Will the EU’s mantra of “strategic autonomy” continue to force it to view the UK as a competitor and a rival?

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For all his charm, Blair ultimately failed the latter test… he promised to run a campaign to persuade the British public of the benefits of EU membership. This never materialised, and we are living with the consequences.

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Editor: Anand Menon trades in political clichés:



Blenheim represents a golden opportunity to begin Labour’s reset with the EU. But a change in tone, while welcome, is merely the precursor to the real work. Winning the bike race is not enough.

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Editor: the question that Anand Menon misses is that of Mariana Mazzucato and her political cadre’s very strong twitter presence. And their collective political imperative of re-branding Neo-Liberalism!

Mission-oriented industrial strategy: global insights | policy report no. 2024/09

Authors:

• Mariana Mazzucato : Founding Director and Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value | UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)
• Sarah Doyle : Director’s Chief of Staff / Director’s Head of Policy | UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)
• Luca Kuehn von Burgsdorff : Senior Policy Advisor to Professor Mariana Mazzucato | UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)

Summery

Industrial strategy is experiencing a renaissance. Getting the details right matter. Mission-oriented industrial strategy needs to be more than words if we want to avoid missions becoming part of the problem, not the solution. This report is based on research conducted over the past several years, led by Professor Mazzucato and her team at IIPP. It offers practical insights gained from work with governments around the world – on opportunities ranging from healthy and sustainable housing estates in our local Camden Council to the ecological transition in Brazil – that are advancing new approaches to bring economic, social, and environmental policy goals into alignment at the centre of their growth strategies. The report offers a one-stop-shop for how to design, implement, and govern mission-oriented industrial strategies and examines the tools, institutions, partnerships, and capabilities governments need to deliver transformative change.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/publications/2024/jul/mission-oriented-industrial-strategy-global-insights

Political Observer

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Editor: Added on June 6, 2026

More on Professor Mariana Mazzucato, from 2015!

At The Financial Times: Matthew Taylor on a more progressive manifesto for Labour, some thoughts by Political Reporter

Posted on September 8, 2015 by stephenkmacksd

Beware of the manifesto bearing Public Intellectual/Politician or should we call Mr. Taylor by his actual name? a former ‘ Chief Adviser on Political Strategy to the Prime Minister’? See Mr. Taylor’s impressive CV here:

https://www.thersa.org/events/speakers/matthew-taylor

The temptation is to compare Mr. Taylor’s fascination with Professor Mariana Mazzucato, author of The Entrepreneurial State, with Mrs. Thatcher’s penchant for passing out copies of Road to Serfdom? If Utopianism is the object of the Right’s contempt for Marx and his epigones, and even Keynes or Piketty, where might the thinking reader put Mr. Taylor’s enthusiasm? Here are some links about Professor Mariana Mazzucato and her book:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Mazzucato

http://www.anthempress.com/the-entrepreneurial-state

http://marianamazzucato.com/the-entrepreneurial-state/

Reviews of her book:

The Economist is a bit fretful of Professor Mazzucato’s thesis, yet after the initial repetition of press release chatter, in the end warms to the notion of The Entrepreneurial State: that oscillates politically between Jeffersonian/Hamiltonian imperatives and a control of the costs of ‘entitlements’ as a measure of necessary reforms. The last paragraph of the review is telling:

Quibbles aside, Ms Mazzucato is right to argue that the state has played a central role in producing game-changing breakthroughs, and that its contribution to the success of technology-based businesses should not be underestimated. She is also right to point out that the “profligate” countries that are suffering the most from the current crisis (such as Greece and Italy) are those that have spent the least on R&D and education. There are many reasons why policymakers must modernise the state and bring entitlements under control. But one of the most important is that a well-run state is a vital part of a successful innovation system.

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21584307-new-book-points-out-big-role-governments-play-creating-innovative-businesses

Jeff Madrick, at the NYRB has unstinting praise for Professor Mazzucato: ‘ It is one of the most incisive economic books in years.’ Mr. Madrick doesn’t share Mr. Wortsell’s penchant for concise and clear definitions. He also reviews ‘Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy: Markets, Speculation and the State’ by William H. Janeway. Insights are many and worth your time and attention, although his almost worshipful stance to Janeway reaches to the level of the obsequious- he seems star struck, dazzled by Janeway’s ability to make money. The real insights offered by Mr. Madrick is that he devotes time to Mr. Janeway’s book that offer a history of government involvement with innovative technologies. A long excerpt worthy of quotation:

Mazzucato claims not that business entrepreneurs and venture capitalists did not make crucial contributions, but that they were, on balance, more averse to risks than government researchers. One successful venture capitalist, William Janeway, fully acknowledges the fundamental contributions of government research in his book, Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy. He is concerned that the antigovernment attitudes of recent decades may prove dangerous. “The very success in ‘liberating’ the market economy from the encroachment of the state,” he writes, which defines today’s conventional economic wisdom, as the quote by Summers suggests, “has potentially dire consequences for the Innovation Economy.”

Janeway is a well-informed economist as well as a successful venture entrepreneur, and he argues for the importance of government in the nation’s economic growth. With the development of huge, highly profitable corporations in steel, oil, aluminum, chemicals, and communications by the late 1800s, he notes, crucial research was increasingly dominated by the private sector. Janeway cites the business historian Alfred Chandler to show that this is not an example of the free market at work. Rather, the huge, unchallenged profits of large oligopolistic companies enabled them to make long-term investments in research. Chandler called it the “visible hand.” Still, while Bell Labs and Xerox PARC, as well as research labs at General Electric, DuPont, and Alcoa, among others, made important, even legendary discoveries, they were also partly financed by Washington.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/apr/24/innovation-government-was-crucial-after-all/

See Mr.Tim Worstall‘s rather tart dismissal at Forbes, as he looks at the idea of ‘public goods’ as argued by Professor Mazzucato. His conclusion is expressed as kind of doubt that is hard to argue with.

But if we’ve got a patent there then it’s not a public good any more, is it? For the patent itself means that whatever it is is now excludable. This is an either or proposition. Either something is a public good because we cannot exclude people from it and therefore it must be that we cannot get a patent on it. Or, alternatively, we can get a patent, it is excludable, therefore it is a private, not public, good. It cannot be both patented and also a public good.

And it’s on the basis of this sort of argumentation that she wants to upend the system of fostering innovation and invention. I think not, don’t you? Whether we agree or not with the State taking a larger role let’s at least wait until someone comes up with some logically consistent arguments.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/12/15/the-intellectual-hole-at-the-heart-of-mariana-mazzucatos-entrepreneurial-state/

One could wonder, out loud, whether Professor Mazzucato’s book is a predictor of the Political Corporatism, that, in America, is the course charted by President Obama and his Republican allies in Congress? The TPA and TPP?

With my exploration of Professor Mazzucato’s book/Progressive Manifesto, Mr. Taylor returns, in his essay, to the political world of Labour politics, and a very sophisticated plea for a leadership headed by the ‘Progressive’ Ms. Kendall not by ‘Left Wing Firebrand’ Mr. Corbyn, to foreshorten it!

Political Reporter

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f9298302-555c-11e5-9846-de406ccb37f2.html#axzz3l9RhbZR7