Capitalism

• Stranger Things actor Millie Bobby Brown’s debut novel, Nineteen Steps, revolves loosely around true events.
• In 1943, the Bethnal Green tube disaster claimed the lives of 173 Londoners, due to faulty stairs in the station used as an air raid shelter.
• This tragedy, the UK’s largest loss of civilian life in the second world war, was one Brown’s own grandmother survived.
• Brown describes her novel as a “really special project” inspired by her family’s WWII history.

Credit where credit’s due?

• These serialised books for young readers revolve around familiar characters and the comforting rhythms of formulaic story arcs.
• Blockbuster writer James Patterson co-authors his novels, coming up with outlines and working with collaborators to conceive, co-write and curate them.
• We also know ghostwriters regularly work with celebrities when they publish memoirs and autobiographies.
• A novel, on the other hand, implies a distinct relationship between author and text that a ghostwriter more clearly undermines.
• If Hemingway was right, and all it takes is to “sit at the typewriter and bleed”, we have good reason to worry about who gets the credit for bleeding a fictional story into being.

Ghost in the machine

• Ghostwritten celebrity novels may not always be a critical success, but they often succeed commercially – at least for a while.
• Shortly afterwards, the book made headlines again when it came to light that a prolific children’s author had written it.
• But Sugg went on to publish several more novels, this time bearing the names of her co-authors on the covers.
• Critics say widespread ghostwriting in books for kids undermines quality and means there’s less money available to sign other authors.

• NEW YORK, Sept. 20, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (Via ESG News) ESG News releases Paul Polman Former Unilever CEO one-on-one interview with Force for Good Host and Chairman Ketan Patel, live from London, England.
• Highlights - Paul Polman speaks to “Force For Good” About:
  How the SDGs are not set to be met, based on today’s trajectory
  How capitalism is much needed, and in a more fit-for-purpose evolved form

• Forbes Holdings intends to decide final investor allocations for closing in the coming weeks.
• This transaction will facilitate a transition of ownership and control of Forbes from Hong Kong back to the U.S.
• This transaction will enable the development of a new business venture ecosystem alongside Forbes Media, leveraging the iconic Forbes brand.
• Steve Forbes will remain involved with Forbes Media, which will continue to be led by the existing management team.

• During an address in Maryland, the president contrasted Bidenomics with Trumpian “MAGAnomics” that would involve tax-cutting and spending reductions.
• He decried trickle-down policies that had, “shipped jobs overseas, hollowed out communities and produced soaring deficits”.
• Changing voters’ minds about the economy is one of Biden’s biggest challenges ahead of the 2024 election.
• Even 60% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning respondents were “seriously” concerned he would lose in 2024.

What is Bidenomics?

• His answer, repeated in his Maryland speech, is to grow the economy “from the middle out and the bottom up”.
• To this end, Bidenomics is centred on three key pillars: smarter public investment, growing the middle class and promoting competition.
• On investment, Biden’s approach fundamentally challenges the argument by the right that increasing public investment “crowds out” more efficient private investment.
• Bidenomics argues that targeted public investment will unlock private investment, delivering well paid jobs and growth.

The results so far

• Over 13 million new jobs have been created, though much of this can be perhaps attributed to workers resuming employment after COVID.
• Total US jobs The IMF predicts the US economy will grow 1.8% in 2023, the strongest among the G7.
• The US also has the group’s lowest inflation rate, although it rose in August.
• On the closely watched core-inflation metric, which excludes food and energy, the US is mid-table, though improving.
• One consolation to the Democrats is that voters’ gloom is partly related to interest rates, which are probably close to peaking.