Hello, good afternoon, happy Friday. As previously mentioned, today is my birthday! I am twenty-eight years old.1 I’m not having a party or doing anything in particular this year, same as last year, because the pandemic unfortunately still surrounds us and I don’t want to make anyone feel bad about not being able to come. But I mentioned on various social media platforms that I’ll be at the Revolution Brewpub, like usual, from about 5pm onward tonight. I’m looking forward to seeing the friends who can make it, and for those that can’t, there’s always next year.
I also booked a reservation for the opening weekend of a new omakase restaurant near Uptown with some friends next week, and I’m excited about that - I’ve never gone to a fancy restaurant opening before, and it’ll be my first time doing omakase, too. Firing on all cylinders, really. Treating myself. As one does.
This weekend I plan on doing some fun stuff with the Minecraft server community, and writing some code, and maybe I’ll even do a little streaming. For now, I need to finish writing this newsletter so I can clean my room and go to the pub. Please pardon the brevity!
Here I am, growing older all the time
I love a good story about beer. Josh Noel’s piece this week about the lager renaissance is extremely my shit, I hope you like it too:
Tom Beckmann figured he’d need his best sales push to get his beer into bars and stores when launching Goldfinger Brewing last year.
Instead, he can’t keep up with demand.
Orders outpace the beer Beckmann can make at his Downers Grove brewery. Ever more shops are asking to carry Goldfinger beer, requests he grudgingly turns away. Beckmann is planning the second Goldfinger expansion in less than two years, and it can’t come soon enough.
The trendy beer Beckmann makes that generates such ardor?
Lager. Good old-fashioned lager.
The truth will set you free
This is the kind of feel-good story I think we can all enjoy:
Former president Donald Trump and his team declared Wednesday night that they would soon launch a “media powerhouse” that would help them triumph in their long-running war against Big Tech. But within hours, pranksters found what appeared to be an unreleased test version and posted a picture of a defecating pig to the “donaldjtrump” account.
The site, called Truth Social, has since been pulled offline, evidence that Trump is likely to face a daunting challenge in building an Internet business that can stand on its own.
Banned by all major social networks after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Trump has for months agitated to regain the online megaphone that once blasted his voice around the world. In a presentation released Wednesday by his new media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, his team hailed the new social network as the first tentpole for a Trump-led media, news and Internet empire that would one day compete with CNN, Disney and Facebook.
But the site’s early hours revealed lax security, rehashed features and a flurry of bizarre design decisions. An open sign-up page allowed anyone to use the site shortly after it was revealed, sparking the creation of the “donaldjtrump” account and the pig posting. A Washington Post reporter was able to register and post under the account name “mikepence” without any stops in place. New sign-ups were blocked shortly after.
A Trump Media & Technology Group spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Influencers, out
All that glitters is not gold:
Austin and Catherine McBroom show off what looks like a fairy-tale lifestyle on their ACE Family YouTube channel, which has more than 19 million subscribers. The family, which includes two daughters (ages 3 and 5) and a 1-year-old son, moved into a massive $10.1 million Los Angeles mansion in 2019 that's featured in most of their videos.
But property records obtained by Insider show their idyllic lifestyle could be in financial peril.
The McBrooms serve as CEO and secretary of Ace Hat Collection Inc., the umbrella company for the ACE Family. Public property records show that Ace Hat Collection signed a deed of trust — a legal agreement between a lender, a borrower, and a trustee — for the Los Angeles property on July 19, 2019.
By May 2021, the property was at risk of foreclosure, in a legal stage known as preforeclosure. On October 19, it was returned to the beneficiary — a legally designated entity that receives benefits from financial products — when it did not receive bids at a public foreclosure auction. In this case, the beneficiary is a financial lender called 5 Arch Funding Corporation.
Supply, meet demand
A common narrative in the news and popular discourse lately - especially from conservatives - is that businesses desperately need workers but that potential workers “are too lazy” to accept poverty wages. That narrative needs some correction:
Joey Holz recalled first hearing complaints about a labor shortage last year when he called to donate convalescent plasma at a clinic near Fort Myers, Florida.
"The guy went on this rant about how he can't find help and he can't keep anybody in his medical facility because they all quit over the stimulus checks," Holz told Insider. "And I'm like, 'Your medical professionals quit over $1,200 checks? That's weird.'"
Over the next several months, the 37-year-old watched as a growing chorus of businesses said they couldn't find anyone to hire because of government stimulus money. It was so ubiquitous that he joined a "No one wants to work" Facebook group, where users made memes deriding frustrated employers.
He said he found it hard to believe that government money was keeping people out of the labor force, especially when the end of expanded federal unemployment benefits did not seem to trigger a surge in employment. All expanded benefits ended in September, but 26 states – including Florida – ended them early in June and July.
"If this extra money that everyone's supposedly living off of stopped in June and it's now September, obviously, that's not what's stopping them," he said. Workers have said companies struggling to hire aren't offering competitive pay and benefits.
So Holz, a former food-service worker and charter-boat crewman, decided to run an experiment.
Modern monetary theory
Listen, we are going to come back to this topic, because I have a lot of opinions about MMO economies and because an issue like this is something I have been theorycrafting about for my Minecraft server. But for now please enjoy the article:
Players in New World are experiencing a rare economic crisis, at least within the scope of online gaming: deflation. More money is leaving circulation than can be replaced. MMO players are more familiar with the opposite issue of rampant inflation, as most MMOs do not have enough currency sinks to prevent the accumulation of money, leading prices for materials, armor, items, housing, or anything in-between to rise, often rapidly. Barring developer interventions, the price of goods trends inevitably upwards.
I also want to point you to Xenogenic’s replies to the tweet I found this piece from, which I think are insightful and important. And, as a matter of fact-checking, bartering actually followed from currency-based economies, not the other way around. You can read about that in the replies, too.
Twirling, twirling, twirling
At this point I am amazed that when Isaac Chotiner asks people to sit down with him for an interview, they don’t just scream until they lose their voice and disappear from society altogether. And yet, here we are, with yet another incredible work of art:
Andrew Yang, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has never held elected office, became a household name when he ran for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 Presidential election. After dropping out of the race in February, 2020, he set his sights on the mayoralty of New York City, and briefly led the Democratic primary polls before losing the nomination to Eric Adams. This month, Yang declared his next pivot. As he published a new book, called “Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy,” he announced that he is starting the Forward Party, which he hopes will break the “duopoly” dominating American politics.
“Forward” is both an account of Yang’s campaigns and a manifesto for his new party, which he believes should focus on advancing structural changes to the political system, such as open primaries and ranked-choice voting, and on lessening extreme partisanship. “Energy and passion won’t accomplish anything if all efforts are pitted in opposition to each other and the political system is designed to reward inertia,” Yang writes. “It’s the system itself that needs to be amended.” He also assures voters that they can maintain their current affiliations while joining his new party: “There will be Forward Democrats and progressives, Forward Republicans and conservatives, Forward independents and unaligned, and so on.”
I recently spoke with Yang by phone about his new book and his plans for the Forward Party. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we also discussed what he learned from running for office, how you can be a Democrat or a Republican and a member of his new party, and whether a third party can help American democracy.
You deserve some good animal content
Have a good weekend.
Addendums
Jackie Calmes proposes a baby step for political reporters. It’s time for Americans to buy less stuff. New whistleblower claims Facebook allowed hate, illegal activity to go unchecked. Guys who quit their jobs during ‘The Great Resignation’ on life on the other side. New documents shed light on Amazon’s controversial Africa headquarters. People Aren’t Meant to Talk This Much. Kids at the centre of anti-vaxx movements. After ‘Grand Theft Auto III,’ Open-World Games Were Never (and Always) the Same.
What the fuck.