Marlow’s Listener

When you get too good at faking it, people freak out

What do the following men and women have in common?
Thomas Marshall
John Kern
Calvin Coolidge
Charles Bryan
Frank Knox
John Bricker
Earl Warren
William Miller
Spiro Agnew
Geraldine Ferraro
Sarah Palin
Each was his or her party’s nominee for vice president in the past 100 years (or will be this year) without an established national reputation. One became President, on the death of President Harding and [...]

In the old days–an endlessly repeated, almost Homeric phrase here, ‘the old days’–the villagers all brought food as gifts, valuable relief from the harsh routines of life in the hills. Today, however, there are few signs of want. “

Organizations will work tirelessly to de-personalize every communication medium they encounter.

All this issue began in the late forties when, at Levi-Strauss’s request,
Andre Weil wrote an appendix (pp 278-285) to Claude’s famous book ‘Les
structures elementaires de la parente’”

Con men have a term, ‘taking off the touch,’ for the point in the con when they take the mark’s money.”

A yet more ambitious approach to macroprudential regulation would involve an attempt by regulators to develop a more fully integrated overview of the entire financial system. In principle, such an approach would appear well justified, as our financial system has become less bank-centered and because activities or risk-taking not permitted to regulated institutions have a [...]