DeLong's Grasping Reality: Economy in the 2000s & Before | Brad DeLong | Substack

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Seduced by the Louis XIV Treatment

What JD Vance and his entourage in Milan teach us about Epstein’s magnetism

Published on Paul Krugman • 11 hrs ago

Assessing Brink Lindsey's "the Permanent Problem"

The Enlightenment and modernity have, Brink Lindsey argues, led to mass society and mass affluence. But their overrun has also created a world where…

15 hrs ago • Brad DeLong

CROSSPOST: PHIL H: What Does Corruption Look Like?

Phil H.'s subtitle is: "They'll tell you not to believe what you can see with your own eyes". The post is about China's Tang Dynasty poet Han Hong's…

17 hrs ago • Brad DeLong

What does corruption look like?

They'll tell you not to believe what you can see with your own eyes

Published on Tang Poetry • 17 hrs ago

Trailer for the "Hail Mary" Movie, Starring Ryan Gosling, Made by My First Cousin Phil Lord & All His Contubernales

My first cousin's latest movie, after the book by Andy Weir: Ryan Gosling & Rocky vs. the world-ending astrophage apocalypse, as the sun itself is on…

Feb 9 • Brad DeLong

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Time for a "Land Acknowledgement"!

The SubStack Attempt to Avoid the ClickBait-Rage Trap Is Failing: The argument against the idea that SubStack needed to develop a social-media…

Dec 4, 2025 • Brad DeLong

A $140,000/Year Poverty Line? I: Stewarding & Utilizing Resources

Four factors making even rich people live poorly and hence feel poor in our immensely rich modern economy: a sense of precarity, a lack of centeredness…

Dec 4, 2025 • Brad DeLong

Using GPT LLM MAMLMs as Your Rabbit—Your Pacer

GPT LLM MAMLMs are not oracles, subordinates, or colleagues. They are emulations of TISs—Typical Internet S***posters. If you are at all a good writer…

Nov 22, 2025

Tuesday Economic Growth Blogging: The Pre‑Modern Treadmill Was Real on Necessities, Not on Technology, or Luxuries, or Culture, or Means of…

Greg Clark’s “Farewell to Alms” still tempts with one big, clean story: pre‑modern humanity stuck on a Malthusian treadmill until cultural-bio selection…

Nov 20, 2025 • Brad DeLong

The False Calm Before Steam: The Index H, Malthus, & the Long Slog, for Growth Was Very Real Before It Became Visible in Average Living…

The cliché says nothing happened before 1800. The data say capability rose steadily—only population swallowed the dividends. Replace vibes with an…

Nov 11, 2025 • Brad DeLong

DeLong's Grasping Reality: Economy in the 2000s & Before

One of the best ways to learn to make sense of money, work, communication, production, distribution, and more. Betting that in the course of human things the future must resemble even if it does not reflect the past, people being much the same over time.

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