In the hopes of getting back to posting at least once a month, here’s a small rundown of some pieces I’ve written in the past few weeks:
“Economic Reporting on Hardships of Pandemic Should Focus on Market Failures” — for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, April 25, 2020
This op-ed touched on what made me feel optimistic about reporting on the economic crises associated with Covid-19 this time around compared with reporting on the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis and a lot of mainstream reporting on the Eurozone Crisis. It also examined some gaps in reporting, which I thought should focus more on the market failures — and problems with capitalism — that I thought reporters were eliding from their analyses.
“Learning All the Wrong Lessons From the 2008 Financial Crisis” — also for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, May 12, 2020
This op-ed was a little bit of a bait and switch — despite the title, I’m still impressed with NYT reporting on the debt build-up associated with the current crisis, mostly by not freaking out about it prematurely, but I talked about some language I found troubling in a relatively recent piece about the trillions of debt being accrued in present responses to the crisis. And they’re way better than the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times on this front. It also gives a bit of a primer on what the problems associated with large debt can be, and why (I think) we shouldn’t worry too much about it right now.
“The End of Capitalism: Ooh La La” — for Progress in Political Economy, associated with the University of Sydney’s Political Economy department, May 27, 2020
This appreciation and deep dive into Run the Jewels and Rage Against the Machine, re: protest music, was a lot of fun to write, and kick started by a twitter link to the just released video for Run the Jewels’ new single, “Ooh La La”. I couldn’t stop watching it. Before the current crisis, I wouldn’t say that I’ve spent a lot of time contemplating alternatives to capitalism; I think that amply applied reform can do a lot of good, which will likely trigger more action by workers, in a feedback dynamic. But the crisis and the tensions that it has laid bare — as discussed in the previous pieces — has me going back to Marx and Keynes and others. What I loved was how RTJ imagined the end of capitalism as something fun; joy pervades the video. But it’s a leap to write about music, especially music to which you feel connected, so I’d say it was also one of the more challenging things I’ve ever put together and submitted for public viewing. Shortly after posting it, someone on Twitter noted that I had no idea what a money gun is. Now I do. Later that evening, my husband looked it up, and I also got the designer of Killer Mike’s primary colored windbreaker wrong. Oops.
Stay safe out there, gang.
Nina Quinn Eichacker 