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Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality—The SubStack
WELCOME TO BRAD DELONG’S GRASPING REALITY: My attempt to make my readers—and myself—smarter, while keeping all of you out there in SubStackLand…
Feb 19
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Brad DeLong
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Quantitative Long-Run Global Economic History: Econ 196: Seminar: Special Topics in Economics (Spring 2026)
And we are now launched, with a new preparation for a new course: a Royal Road into the millennia of global economic history, hopefully designed for…
Feb 19
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Brad DeLong
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NOTE TO SELF: All of the Currently Live Theories of the Causes of the "European Miracle"
& was the “European Miracle” 800-1914, 1492-1914, 1689-1914, or 1776-1914?...
Mar 14
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Brad DeLong
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CROSSPOST: DAN DREZNER: I'm Sick & Tired of All The Winning
Dan’s subhead: “Gulf War Three is not going well for the United States”. I believe Dan Drezner knows more than I do about what is currently going on…
Mar 12
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Brad DeLong
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I'm Sick And Tired of All The Winning
Gulf War Three is not going well for the United States.
Published on Drezner’s World
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Mar 12
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Donald Trump Is too Old to Be President, Yet Every Day, Live on Camera, We Get the Daily Farce of Pretending This Is in Some Way Normal
May 6, 2025
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Brad DeLong
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8% of the Flow of US Real GDP Is Likely to Vanish in the Next Three Months: The Ports Will Be Empty, & then the Shelves
Apr 29, 2025
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Brad DeLong
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The AI-Bubble's Most Likely Endgame Looks to Be Not Apocalypse, But an Awful Lot of Useful Compost
Dec 5, 2025
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Brad DeLong
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TRUMPXIT: The Bell Tolls for Thee
Apr 8, 2025
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Brad DeLong
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Recent posts
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Econ 196 :: The 1870s as the True Hinge of History? :: Pre-Class Assignment—do before 2026-03-08 23:59 PST:
What I am teaching in my seminar these days: was 1875 truly the singular hinge of human history, or at least of human economic history?…
Mar 5
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Brad DeLong
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MEMO TO SELF: What It Looks Like I Will Actually Have Managed to Cover in My Half of Econ 210a This Semester...
Less than one third of the topics I wanted to, and all at much less depth than they deserve. But ars longa, vita brevis…
Mar 5
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Brad DeLong
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HOISTED FROM THE ARCHIVES: Unleash Chiang Kai-Shek
From 2005-10-05: Jeb Bush’s “mystical warrior Chang” gag stems from a right‑wing Cold War slogan about “unleashing Chiang Kai‑shek,” which Bush family…
Mar 4
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Brad DeLong
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CROSSPOST: DAN DREZNER: There Is No U.S. Plan on Iran
Is this the Epstein War, or the Netanyahu War? Dan Drezner thinks it is the Netanyahu War. Dan’s heading: "Maybe, just maybe, the Trump Administration…
Mar 3
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Brad DeLong
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"The Permanent Problem of the Human Race": Yglesias, Keynes, Lindsey; the Quest for Valued Identities & Societal Roles; & How to Move from…
We cannot successfully outsource the solutions to the problem of how to live wisely and agreeably well to markets, bureaucracies, & parasocial…
Mar 9
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Brad DeLong
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From Plato to NATO to MAGA: Marco Rubio’s Myths & the Real "Western Alliance"
Reässessing the “West” from John Winthrop to Marco Rubio…
Feb 17
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Brad DeLong
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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…
Feb 9
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Brad DeLong
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The Streaming Wars Were Just Plain Weird
Netflix climbs to the top of the streaming-success mountain only to see a much bigger mountain in front of it still to climb: The streaming wars were…
Feb 8
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Brad DeLong
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A Brief Note on the Near-Absence of Pre-1500 "Economic Growth"
& some of my musings on how to teach it. The long agrarian-age Malthusian night of the trap, of the ensorcellment: thugs, patriarchs, …
Feb 4
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Brad DeLong
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Quantitative Long-Run Global Economic History: Econ 196: Seminar: Special Topics in Economics (Spring 2026)
And we are now launched, with a new preparation for a new course: a Royal Road into the millennia of global economic history, hopefully designed for…
Feb 19
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Brad DeLong
17
9
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