#Macroeconomic data

[wealthwise93]

How World Events Influence Stocks: A Guide for Investors

How World Events Influence Stocks. Read more -> www.wealth-wise.blog World events, Stocks, Stock market, Economic calendar, Financial portals, News sources, Investment guide, Global happenings, Interest rate decisions, Inflation data, Corporate earnings

To understand how world events impact specific stocks, there are various approaches and tools that can help you better grasp the connections between global happenings and stock prices: 1. News Sources and Financial Portals Current news about politics, economics, and natural disasters often have immediate effects on financial markets. Here are some platforms that keep you informed about such…

[bitcoinversus]

Data From Power Law Theorist Claims ISM PMI Data Linked to Bitcoin Trend

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) is a U.S.-based organization that conducts monthly surveys to assess business activity in the manufacturing and services sectors. Its Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) is a widely recognized economic indicator that measures business activity levels by gathering data from purchasing managers across the country. The PMI reflects overall economic…

[economicsinaction]

Economics is getting reduced to data analysis 

Increasingly, the theory or `thinking’ is missing in economics, and the research in the discipline is getting limited to data analysis.  One reason is the doubts on the usefulness of theoretical frameworks of the discipline. It started with macroeconomics. Macroeconomic behaviour cannot be modelled as that of individuals and firms. It is a system wherein the behaviour all individuals, firms and…

[bookishgalaxies]

Advanced Placement Credit Given to…

☾☼✧☽ summary: the ap classes these different characters would take

☾☼✧☽ type: headcannons, modern au

☾☼✧☽ warnings: n/a

☾☼✧☽ a/n: my ap classes are killing me-

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✧ albedo

chemistry and art history

I think the chemistry part is obvious, as an alchemist he would find this kind of thing fascinating. Obviously he would enjoy the rigor and fast paced layout of the class. CB requires 16 labs to be done throughout the year in ap chem and he would adore this as well. Definitely thinking he’s pulling an A in this class, actually an A+

Albedo’s an artist and a curious individual. I imagine he would find himself interested in the history of art and the different pieces. As a chemist he is always chasing after whys and hows; it only makes sense for him to look for this in art as well. He would also pull a high A I feel in this class due to his commitment to his studies

✧ amber

human geography

Amber isn’t much of an academic, but she appreciates geography I imagine. As an outrider who is exploring and navigating, she would find the history of places and maps fascinating. Amber also, or at least I seem to think, would have a hard time taking an intense ap class. This one is one of the easiest out of the ones CB offers. I think Amber would get an A in this class and I am firm believer that she unfortunately is the one who reminds the teacher when homework is due :/

✧ diluc

macroeconomics, microeconomics, and statistics

Macroeconomics covers the economic of wider areas like regions and nations. Diluc being someone who has a business that is known worldwide would I feel find value in knowing about the economics of not only his country but others as well.

Microeconomics is more focused on the economics of an individual thing like companies. This is a class that would give the insight on the business side of economics.

Business requires a lot of data. Most of the time when analyzing data statistics is involved. Diluc would use statistics I feel to see what kinds of wine tend to sell on what regions and what happens when prices increase and decrease.

Diluc I see passing all of these classes, I think the economic ones with an A and stats with a high B.

✧ jean

comparative government and politics and psychology

Government and politics I feel is self explanatory because of how Jean pretty much runs Mondstadt. She has to contact diplomats from all nations and make negotiations. I think she would also find it kind of interesting about different types of government and how things are ran.

Jean would have to on some level be a people person. To some degree she would have to know how people think and feel. She would find the makeup of the human brain fascinating I think.

Jean is not letting herself get anything less than an A, let’s be real-

✧ lisa

english language and composition, english literature and composition, and latin (or teyvat’s equivalent, maybe Khaenri’ah’s language..)

Tumblr deleted Lisa’s part like 3 TIMES kill me :/. Anyways, I think the language composition and literature composition are obvious. I mean…..she’s a librarian.

The language thing I feel would stem from her wanting to be able to read more books. Therefor she wanted to learn a new language to broaden her selection of books

She wanted to take ap chem but decide to just do general instead. I definitely think Lisa could get an A in all three classes. I just think she gets distracted easily and would need someone to help her focus.

✧ sucrose

chemistry, biology, and computer science a

Obviously she would take chem with Albedo. I think it would take her a bit longer to grasp some of the concepts and Albedo might have to help her out some but she does overall well in the class, I say an A-

She flies through biology without a problem due to her interest in life forms. Is definitely earning an A+

OKAY HEAR ME OUT! So Sucrose wants to study how to manipulate life to make it better and brighter. I think she would be all over the idea of being a bioengineer. Thus, she would learn how to code.

Sucrose would do well in the comp sci a course I believe. I could see her being a really good problem solver and understanding Java well (the programming language you learn in comp sci a)

✧ venti

music theory

Don’t come for my throat, I love Venti I swear. However, I do not think he would preform well in this class. Music theory isn’t really so much about composing music as it is about the rules of composing music. I think Venti would do wonderfully with dictation (where you hear notes/chords and have to identify and write them). As well as sight singing (where you are given a sheet of music and have a certain amount of time to practice and sing it).

We all know Venti is great at composing music…but he doesn’t really like playing by the rules (aka all the figured bass line shit), so I don’t think he’d do so good. Venti can read sheet music sure but he didn’t take the time to memorize all the special symbols when he just knows music.

I’m going to be generous and give him a C considering he can do the dictation and sight singing. Anything where he’s having to analyze and determine cadences or other conceptual stuff he’s kind of screwed

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kaeya does not take any ap classes however he relentlessly bothers albedo while he is trying to study. Also totally tries to convince lisa at least once to bail on writing a paper and come to some party or whatever.

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thank you so much for reading !

stay hydrated and safe !

[comeonamericawakeup]

Across the Midwest, inland lakes used to be "dotted with vacation cottages once built for blue-collar workers," said Emily Badger. In 1980, "a great American job" was factory foreman. The role "seldom required a college degree," but foremen were paid much more than the average U.S. worker.

"Many of the roles they supervised were relatively higher-paying then, too: machinists, welders, metal fabricators, and tool and die makers." They could afford a decent quality of life. But in the past 40 years, a massive "reordering" of workers' status has taken place. Today, a factory foreman makes "a shrinking share of what the average American worker does," while other positions, like financial analyst or computer programmer, are "delivering mounting rewards." Even as their inflation-adjusted income has remained relatively flat since 1980, white men without a college degree, who "used to be ahead in the American economy," have now fallen behind other groups. The dwindling "sense of relative standing" felt by these Americans can help explain why perceptions of the economy continue to lag the macroeconomic data. They are frustrated not simply by "lost jobs" and "rising prices" but also by seeing their status decline "in a world that now lifts other kinds of people up."

THE WEEK November 8, 2024

[iww-gnv]

For years, the tech industry seemed like the best place to grow a cushy, stable career. But as benefits disappear and companies lay off thousands, some are questioning whether they made the right choice. In the first two months of the year alone, PayPal, Cisco, and Amazon, among others, have announced layoffs affecting thousands of workers, a continuation of the mass layoffs from last year. All in all, nearly 300,000 workers in the tech industry have lost their jobs in the past year, according to Layoffs.fyi. While the wider macroeconomic environment is still good and job numbers have surpassed expectations, the good vibes have not rippled across all sectors. In tech, even those employees who were not laid off have seen employers scale back benefits while also demanding more of workers.

[mariacallous]

Now that Donald Trump is returning to a second term as U.S. president, ascertaining the true state of Russia’s war economy is more important than ever. Trump’s advisors believe that Ukraine must settle for peace by whatever means necessary “to stop the killing.” Implicit in this argument is the view that Russia has the ability to sustain the war for many years to come. On close examination of the evidence, however, the narrative that Russia has the resources to prevail if it so chooses does not hold.

The apparent resilience of the Russian economy has confounded many strategists who expected Western sanctions to paralyze Moscow’s war effort against Ukraine. Russia continues to export vast quantities of oil, gas, and other commodities—the result of sanctions evasion and loopholes deliberately designed by Western policymakers to keep Russian resources on world markets. So far, clever macroeconomic management, particularly by Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina, has enabled the Kremlin to keep the Russian financial system in relative health.

At first glance, the numbers look surprisingly strong. In 2023, GDP grew by 3.6 percent and is expected to rise by 3.9 percent in 2024. Unemployment has fallen from around 4.4 percent before the war to 2.4 percent in September. Moscow has expanded its armed forces and defense production, adding more than 500,000 workers to the defense industry, approximately 180,000 to the armed forces, and many thousands more to paramilitary and private military organizations. Russia has reportedly tripled its production of artillery shells to 3 million per year and is manufacturing glide bombs and drones at scale.

Despite these accomplishments, Russia’s war economy is heading toward an impasse. Signs that the official data masks severe economic strains brought on by both war and sanctions have become increasingly apparent. No matter how many workers it tries to shift to the defense industry, the Kremlin cannot expand production fast enough to replace weapons at the rate they are being lost on the battlefield. Already, about around half of all artillery shells used by Russia in Ukraine are from North Korean stocks. At some point in the second half of 2025, Russia will face severe shortages in several categories of weapons.

Perhaps foremost among Russia’s arms bottlenecks is its inability to replace large-caliber cannons. According to open-source researchers using video documentation, Russia has been losing more than 100 tanks and roughly 220 artillery pieces per month on average. Producing tank and artillery barrels requires rotary forges—massive pieces of engineering weighing 20 to 30 tons each—that can each produce only about 10 barrels a month. Russia only possesses two such forges.

In other words, Russia is losing around 320 tank and artillery cannon barrels a month and producing only 20. The Russian engineering industry lacks the skills to build rotary forges; in fact, the world market is dominated by a single Austrian company, GFM. Russia is unlikely to acquire more forges and increase its production rate, and neither North Korea nor Iran have significant stockpiles of suitable replacement barrels. Only a decision by China to provide barrels from its own stockpiles could stave off Russia’s barrel crisis.

To resupply its forces, Russia has been stripping tank and artillery barrels from the vast stockpiles it inherited from the Soviet Union. But these stockpiles have withered since the start of the war. Combining current rates of battlefield loss, recycling from stockpiles, and production, Russia looks set to run out of cannon barrels some time in 2025.

Russia is consuming other weapons, too, at rates far faster than its ability to produce them. Open-source researchers have counted the loss of at least 4,955 infantry fighting vehicles since the war’s onset, which comes out to an average of 155 per month. Russian defense contractors can produce an estimated 200 per year, or about 17 per month, to offset these losses. Likewise, even Russia’s expanded production of 3 million artillery shells per year pales in comparison to the various estimates for current consumption at the front. While those estimates are lower than the 12 million rounds Russian forces fired in 2022, they are much higher than what Russian industry can produce.

We do not know when Russia will hit the end of the road with each equipment type. But there is little the Kremlin can do little to stave off that day. With the Russian economy essentially at full employment, Russian defense companies now struggle to attract workers. To make matters worse, these companies are competing for the same personnel as the Russian armed forces, which need to recruit 30,000 fresh troops each month to replace casualties. To this end, the military is offering lavish signing bonuses and greatly increased pay. Defense producers, in turn, have had to increase wages fivefold, contributing to an inflation rate that reached 8.68 percent in October.

Paradoxically, the same factors that are converging to restrict Russia’s ability to wage war also mean that it cannot easily make peace.

Russia’s economic performance—marked by low unemployment and rising wages—is a product of military Keynesianism. In other words: Vast military expenditures, which are unsustainable in the long term, are artificially boosting employment and growth. Almost all the new jobs are related to the military and produce little of value to the civilian economy, where most sectors have great difficulty finding workers.

Defense spending has officially jumped to 7 percent of Russia’s GDP and is projected to consume more than 41 percent of the state budget next year. The true magnitude of military expenditures is significantly higher. Russia’s nearly 560,000 armed internal security troops, many of which have been deployed to occupied Ukraine, are funded outside the defense budget—as are the private military companies that have sprouted across Russia.

Paring back these massive defense expenditures, however, will inevitably produce an economic downturn. If the Kremlin draws down the armed forces to a sustainable level, large numbers of traumatized veterans and well-paid defense workers will find themselves redundant. The experience of other societies—in particular, European states after World War I—suggests that hordes of demobilized soldiers and jobless defense workers are a recipe for political instability.

The magnitude of the post-war Russian recession will be all the worse because Russia’s civilian economy—particularly small- and medium-sized firms—has shrunk due to the war. In a phenomenon familiar to economists, high defense expenditures have bid up salaries and attracted labor away from nondefense firms. The Russian Central Bank’s policy of raising interest rates, which currently stand at 21 percent, has made it much more difficult for nondefense companies to raise capital through loans. In post-war Russia, a shrunken civilian sector will not be able to absorb the soldiers and workers cast off by the military and defense sector.

Therefore, Russia’s leaders face an unenviable set of dilemmas entirely of their own making. Russia cannot continue waging the current war beyond late 2025, when it will begin running out of key weapons systems.

Concluding a peace agreement, however, poses a different set of problems, as the Kremlin needs to choose between three unpalatable options. If it draws down the armed forces and defense industries, it will spark a recession that could threaten the regime. If Russian policymakers instead maintain high levels of defense spending and a bloated peacetime military, it will asphyxiate the Russian economy, crowding out civilian industry, and stifle growth. Having experienced the Soviet Union’s decline and fall for similar economic reasons, Russian leaders will probably seek to avoid this fate.

A third option, however, is available and likely beguiling: Rather than demobilizing or bankrupting themselves, Russian leaders could instead use their military to obtain the economic resources needed to sustain it—in other words, using conquest and the threat thereof to pay for the military.

Plenty of precedents exist. In 1803, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte ended 14 months of peace in Europe because he could not afford to fund his military based on French revenues alone—and he also refused to demobilize it. In 1990, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein similarly invaded oil-rich Kuwait because he could not afford to pay the million-man army that he refused to downsize. In both cases, the mirage of conquest seemed attractive for sustaining overly large defense establishments without having to pay for them.

Russia could likewise exploit its expanded military to extract rents from other states. Even though Russia is running out of key weapons systems for its all-out war on Ukraine, its forces will still be capable of punctual acts of aggression. Indeed, it’s easy to imagine how Russia might pursue such a policy.

Substantial offshore gas reserves have been discovered in the Black Sea within Ukraine’s and Georgia’s internationally recognized exclusive economic zones (EEZs). Whenever Western states are distracted by other priorities, Russia could also renew its aggression against Ukraine in order to gain control of its agricultural, gas, and rare-earth resources. Finally, Russia might use threats of force rather than actually fighting in order to coerce European states to withdraw sanctions, unfreeze Russian assets, or reopen gas and oil pipelines.

Some important lessons emerge. First, Russia’s economy cannot indefinitely sustain its war against Ukraine. Labor and production bottlenecks will condemn Russia to defeat as long as Ukraine’s allies sustain it beyond the second half of 2025. Contrary to the myth of infinite Russian resources, the Kremlin’s armies are far from unbeatable. But Russia’s defeat demands a level of Western patience and commitment that a combination of vacillating Western leaders and volatile domestic politics renders questionable.

Second, the cessation of full-scale fighting in Ukraine will not end the West’s problems with Russia. Russia’s supersized military sector incentivizes the Kremlin to use its military to extract rents from neighboring states. The alternatives—demobilizing and incurring a recession or indefinitely funding a bloated military and defense industry—pose existential threats to Putin’s regime.

However Russia ends its current war, the country’s economic realities alone will generate new forms of insecurity for Europe. Far-sighted policymakers should focus on mitigating these future threats, even as they focus on how the current round of fighting in Ukraine will end.

[darkmaga-returns]

The Democrats complained for MONTHS that the economy was the best ever - the BEST! But as we look across the global economy today, there's very real evidence that we're treading on thin ice. Beneath the surface of macroeconomic data lie unsettling signals pointing to a fragile and vulnerable economic landscape.from Eurodollar University

Job markets are cooling, consumer resilience is fading, and global demand is faltering in key sectors. Central banks, once steadfast on inflation control, are now cutting rates more aggressively than anticipated. Together, these indicators paint a picture of a world economy struggling to maintain stability, with potential downturns lurking in multiple directions. Below, we break down the key data points and industry insights that underscore this precarious economic moment.

Labor Market Weakness:

Declining Job Openings: Job openings tumbled by over 400,000 in September 2024 to 7.44 million, the lowest since January 2021. This signals weakening demand for workers.

Low Hiring Rate: While slightly up for three months, the hiring rate remains depressed at around 5.5 million in September 2024, far below healthier levels.

Declining Quits Rate: The quits rate fell to around 3 million, similar to 2015 levels, suggesting workers are hesitant to leave their jobs due to a perceived lack of opportunities.

Rising Layoffs: Layoffs and discharges rose above 1.8 million in September 2024, the highest since January 2023, signaling a potential uptrend in job losses.

Private Payroll Weakness: Private payrolls were under 100,000 in every month except September since May, even reaching close to zero in August (revised).

Weak October Payrolls: A meager increase of 12,000 jobs in October 2024, with private payrolls down 28,000.

Declining Hours Worked: The hours worked index has been flat for four months (since May 2024). The average workweek fell back to a cycle low of 34.2 hours.

Anecdotes:

Bartenders, waiters, and waitresses report declining tips, foot traffic, and overall lower restaurant sales. Some have had their hours cut despite base pay raises, forcing them to seek additional jobs.

Nissan cutting production of North American models by 30% due to lower sales and rising inventories. Similar struggles reported by Ford and Stellantis.

German auto parts maker Schaeffler AG cutting 4,700 jobs in Europe due to lower automotive production and general industrial weakness.

Expert Quotes:

Ryan Sweet (Oxford Economics): While a prior job openings increase was encouraging, he emphasizes the importance of consistent improvement and close monitoring of the quits and layoff rates.

Elizabeth Renter (NerdWallet): Observes that employers are hesitant to hire and workers are reluctant to leave their current jobs.

[eightyonekilograms]

The inimitable Maciej Cegłowski has this great article about the Wright Brothers, and why you never hear about them at any point beyond the initial Kitty Hawk flight. How come they didn't use that first-mover advantage to become titans of the aviation industry? Why aren't we all flying in Wright 787s today?

Well, the tl;dr is that after the first flight, they basically spent the rest of their lives obsessed with suing anyone else who wanted to "steal their invention", and were so tangled up in patent litigation that they never improved on their design, much less turned it into something that could be manufactured, and the industry immediately blew them by, with the Wright lawsuits being just a minor speed bump in this process. They were never again relevant in aviation.

I feel like this is worth considering as we watch Reddit self-immolate. In a broader sense this is happening because of macroeconomic trend, and non-zero interest rates, but it does feel like the immediate trigger for the idiocy at Reddit was them being pissed that OpenAI "stole" their content*, and wanting "fair compensation" for that, so now they're burning the site to the ground in this hopeless crusade which will not, actually, generate much revenue for the site or impede the AI industry at all.

There are a bunch of other examples of this dynamic, such as SCO and (more controversially, but I think it's true) Harlan Ellison. People are becoming stupid about IP again thanks to LLMs, and so I wanted to remind them that being consumed by an obsession with enforcing your IP rights often just makes you an irrelevant has-been.

* no they didn't, consuming public data for training a neural net is not stealing, no matter how many times people call it that

[prapasara]

Tooth fairy

Tooth fairy

The tooth fairy is a folkloric figure of early childhood in Western and Western-influenced cultures.  The folklore states that when children lose one of their baby teeth, they should place it underneath their pillow or on their bedside table; the Tooth Fairy will visit while they sleep, replacing the lost tooth with a small payment.

Origins

During the Middle Ages, other superstitions arose surrounding children's teeth. Children in England were instructed to burn their baby teeth, on pain of spending eternity searching for the baby teeth in the afterlife. Fear of witches was another reason to bury or burn teeth. In medieval Europe, it was thought that a witch could assume total power over someone if they were to obtain one of their teeth. 

Another modern incarnation of these traditions into an actual Tooth Fairy has been traced to a 1908 "Household Hints" item in the Chicago Daily Tribune:

Tooth Fairy. Many a refractory child will allow a loose tooth to be removed if he knows about the Tooth Fairy. If he takes his little tooth and puts it under the pillow when he goes to bed the Tooth Fairy will come in the night and take it away, and in its place will leave some little gift. It is a nice plan for mothers to visit the 5-cent counter and lay in a supply of articles to be used on such occasions. 

Appearance

Unlike Father Christmas and, to a lesser extent, the Easter Bunny, there are few details of the Tooth Fairy's appearance that are consistent in various versions of the myth. A 1984 study conducted by Rosemary Wells revealed that most, 74 percent of those surveyed, believed the Tooth Fairy to be female, while 12 percent believed the Tooth Fairy to be neither male nor female, and 8 percent believed the Tooth Fairy could be either male or female.  When asked about her findings regarding the Tooth Fairy's appearance, Wells explained: "You've got your basic Tinkerbell-type Tooth Fairy with the wings, wand, a little older and whatnot. Then you have some people who think of the tooth fairy as a man, a bunny rabbit, or a mouse."  One review of published children's books and popular artwork found the Tooth Fairy to be depicted in many different forms, including as a child with wings, a pixie, a dragon, a blue mother-figure, a flying ballerina, two little older men, a dental hygienist, occasionally a female dentist, a potbellied flying man smoking a cigar, a bat, a bear, and others. Unlike the well-established imagining of Santa Claus, differences in renderings of the Tooth Fairy are not as upsetting to children. 

Depiction on coins and currency 

Starting in 2011, the Royal Canadian Mint began selling special sets for newborn babies, birthdays, wedding anniversaries, "Oh Canada", and the Tooth Fairy. The Tooth Fairy quarters, which were issued only in 2011 and 2012, were packaged separately. 

In 2020, the Royal Australian Mint began issuing "Tooth Fairy kits" that included commemorative $2 coins.

Reward

The reward left varies by country, the family's economic status, amounts the child's peers report receiving, and other factors.  A 2013 survey by Visa Inc. found that American children receive $3.70 per tooth on average.  According to the same survey, only 3% of children find a dollar or less and 8% find a five-dollar bill or more under their pillow. 

The reward is affected by inflation.  According to data gathered by the American dental insurance company Delta Dental, the average payout per tooth in the United States rose from $1.30 in 1998 to $6.23 in 2023.  According to Delta Dental, the payout's trends typically mirror macroeconomic conditions and the S&P 500 stock index. 

Delta Dental found that the first tooth lost gets a higher reward than other teeth on average in the United States.

Belief

Belief in the Tooth Fairy is viewed in two very different ways. On the one hand, children's beliefs are seen as part of the trusting nature of childhood. Conversely, belief in the Tooth Fairy is frequently used to label adults as being too trusting and ready to believe anything. 

Parents tend to view the myth as providing comfort for children in losing a tooth.  Research finds that belief in the Tooth Fairy may comfort a child experiencing fear or pain from losing a tooth.  Mothers especially seem to value a child's belief as a sign that their "baby" is still a child and is not "growing up too soon".  By encouraging belief in a fictional character, parents allow themselves to be comforted that their child still believes in fantasy and is not yet "grown up". 

Children often discover the Tooth Fairy is imaginary as part of the age 5- to 7-year shift, often connecting this to other gift-bearing imaginary figures (such as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny). 

Author Vicki Lansky advises parents to tell their children early that the tooth fairy pays much more for a perfect tooth than a decayed one. According to Lansky, some families leave a note with the payment, praising the child for good dental habits. 

Research findings suggest a possible relationship between a child's continued belief in the Tooth Fairy (and other fictional characters) and false memory syndrome

Related myths

El Ratón Pérez (Spain and Latin America) 

In Spain and Hispanic America, El Ratoncito Pérez or Ratón Pérez (lit. transl. Perez the Little Mouse or Perez Mouse) is equivalent to the Tooth Fairy. He first appeared in an 1894 tale written by Luis Coloma for King Alfonso XIII, who had just lost a milk tooth at the age of eight.  As is traditional in other cultures, when a child loses a tooth it is customary for the child to place it under the pillow so that El Ratoncito Pérez will exchange it for a small payment or gift. The tradition is almost universal in Spanish cultures, with some slight differences.

He is generally known as "El Ratoncito Pérez",  except for some regions of Mexico, Peru, and Chile, where he is called "El Ratón de los Dientes" (transl. The Tooth Mouse), and in Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay, and Colombia, where he is known simply as "El Ratón Pérez". He was used by Colgate marketing in Venezuela  and Spain.

Elsewhere in Europe 

In Italy, the Tooth Fairy (Fatina dei denti) is also often replaced by a tiny mouse named Topolino. In some areas the same role is held by Saint Apollonia, known as Santa Polonia in Veneto.  (Saint Apollonia's legendary martyrdom involved having her teeth broken; she is frequently depicted artistically holding a tooth and is considered the patron saint of dentistry and those with toothache and dental problems.)

In France and French-speaking Belgium, this character is called La Petite Souris (The Little Mouse). From parts of Lowland Scotland comes a tradition similar to the fairy mouse: a white fairy rat who purchases children's teeth with coins.

In Catalonia, the most popular would be Els Angelets (little angels) and also "Les animetes" (little souls) and as in the other countries, the tooth is placed under the pillow in exchange of a coin or a little token.

In the Basque Country, and especially in Biscay, there is Mari Teilatukoa ("Mary from the roof"), who lives in the roof of the baserri and catches the teeth thrown by the children. In Cantabria, he is known as L'Esquilu de los dientis ("the tooth squirrel). 

Asia and Africa

In Japan, a different variation calls for lost upper teeth to be thrown straight down to the ground and lower teeth straight up into the air; the idea is that incoming teeth will grow in straight. 

In Korea, throwing both upper and lower teeth on the roof was common.  The practice is rooted around the Korean national bird, the magpie. It is said that if the magpie finds a tooth on the roof, it will bring good luck.  Some scholars think the myth derived from the word 까치(Ka-chi) which was a middle Korean word for magpies that sounds similar to "new teeth", or because of the significance of magpies in Korean mythology as a messenger between gods and humans. 

In Middle Eastern countries

 (including Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, and Sudan), there is a tradition of throwing a baby tooth up into the sky to the sun or to Allah. This tradition may originate in a pre-Islamic offering dating back to the 13th century. It was also mentioned by Izz bin Hibat Allah Al Hadid in the 13th century. 

In Mali, children throw baby teeth into the chicken coop to receive a chicken the following day. 

In Afrikaans speaking families in South Africa, children leave their teeth in a shoe so that the Tandemuis (Tooth Mouse) can replace the teeth with money.

In popular culture

In 1927, a children's playwright, Esther Watkins Arnold, brought to life an extraordinary, elf-like creature, in an 8-page playlet. She playfully christened it as the "Tooth fairy", and this mythical creature had the power to fly around visiting young children, to collect their fallen (milk) teeth.

See also

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark – A film featuring an early version of the creatures

Fairy

Ratoncito Pérez – Spanish tooth mouse

Hammaspeikko – Finnish tooth troll

Hogfather – Discworld novel featuring their version of the Tooth Fairy

CR   ::      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooth_fairy

[poetusa]

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚31/08/24˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

I'm kind of having a STROKE trying to figure out how this dispersion graphic works because I feel like I don't have enough data in my excel sheets (my math isn't mathing).

I love macroeconomics, the teacher is awesome, but these are gonna be hard times and I need to get everything in place so I can properly focus. And also this is one of the most important subjects in my major so I gotta do better.

[luxe-pauvre]

Clearly, those with responsibility for making policy in any large organisation should thoroughly examine evidence of this sort. Personally, though, I hesitate to use the phrase 'evidence-based policy’, preferring instead to talk about ‘evidence-informed policy’. This leads to accusations of hair-splitting on my part, but the case is substantive. First, evidence-based policy implies that, if you look hard enough, the evidence will tell you what to do. It rarely, if ever, does. Partly this because, especially in the social sciences, the evidence is often contested and never complete. Also, while the evidence offers valuable insights, it does not indicate the values upon which decisions need to be based. For example, if you could show, on the basis of evidence, that a given tax cut would harm the poor, you would still have a decision to make: should you protect the poor, or is that imperative overridden in this case by macroeconomic considerations? If so, are you willing to pay the price in the short term? I'm not arguing one way or the other, just pointing out that there is a value judgement to be made. The evidence can and should inform the decision, but even when it is compelling, it won't tell you what to do. Dave Brailsford, when referring to tactical and strategic decisions about bike races, makes the point succinctly: The data informs, it doesn't decide.' Hence my preference for the phrase 'evidence-informed’. And the evidence can and should inform, whether it's a purely personal goal or a major strategic intervention at company or government level.

Michael Barber, Accomplishment: How to Achieve Ambitious and Challenging Things

[grapefruiters]

14. Favorite book you read this year?

20. What’s something you learned this year?

14. favorite nonfiction was freakanomics! it was super interesting and even tho i hate macroeconomics i loved the books and i'm loving statistics :] data and anthropology combined is so cool! my favorite fiction might've been why we broke up by daniel handler; i don't normally like second person but it was lovely and made me so emotional! also shoutout to hgttg which i'm currently reading. it's pretty cool!

20. oh goodness idk if i can name a specific fact...but this year i got to take a (one week) summer class on surrealim, including the roots of the movement and popular artists as well as writers. I think the style is super cool and interesting, even if i'm not great at writing it myself! also it was one of my first true college-style classes which makes me super excited for college, i hope i get to learn about more niche-ish topics like that! ty for the ask!! :]

[hondacivictrucknuts]

Kamala Harris has answered the question of who she is: She is a sex crimes prosecutor.

That's always been part of her biography, but on the Call Her Daddy podcast it became clear that it's also a dominant part of her identity. If a woman or girl you cared about were raped, you would be grateful for Kamala Harris to speak with her. She would know what to say, and she would say it with conviction, and it would help.

At one point in my academic career I got interested in sexual violence, and attempted to study it with the tools of empirical economics. I.e., if a jurisdiction implements X policy, what impact does this have on the number of women who get raped there? I didn't have much success, mainly for data availability reasons; but I also discovered that this style of question was totally foreign to the people whose careers consist of studying related questions by other means. As an economist, this took a while to wrap my mind around: all these people care so much about other people making a choice they don't like (i.e. to rape), and they're avowedly uninterested in the determinants of those choices. Eventually I came to accept it.

Kamala Harris's economics policies make more sense in this light. I've noted before that nothing she talks about corresponds to any theory I know of how prices, wages, consumption, growth, inequality, migration, deficits, and so forth are connected. She just wants to help families. And for a sex crimes prosecutor, who is used to taking the existence of rapists and rape as givens to which we can only respond, it perhaps makes sense to take GDP as given and make plans to redistribute it. The only thing she can think to do for small businesses is to give them a tax break (although maybe she's just not taking credit for giving them lots of cheap migrant labor), when regulations are a bigger burden for many small businesses.

There was a collection of essays published in the 90s called Transforming a Rape Culture. The book had a strongly implied but unstated assumption that the cultural project it proposed would reduce the suffering caused by rape in our society. Also implied, but less strongly, was that the reduction would be on the intensive and not the extensive margin. While the book begat much follow-up work, none included checking to see whether it worked.

I think Kamala Harris's notion of an "opportunity economy" is similar to the idea of Transforming a Rape Culture. It certainly sounds like a good idea! There are things which could be better in fairly obvious ways with no obvious downside. It doesn't rely on any falsifiable theory of human nature or social relationships, and it's not clear how you would measure the results.

Kamala Harris having no theory of macroeconomics is not necessarily a bad thing. Her Treasury Secretary will have to get confirmed by Mitch McConnell's Senate, and she'll probably keep Jay Powell for the same reasons Biden did. McConnell can hash out fiscal policy with Hakeem Jeffries, and Harris can ask how it affects real people and then sign the bill.