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What is Economix?
Praise for Economix
“I just cannot stress enough how amazing this book is.”
–James Floyd Kelly, Wired.com
“It’s simply phenomenal.”
— David Bach, author of Debt Free for Life and The Automatic Millionaire
“Goodwin has done the seemingly impossible–he has made economics comprehensible and funny.”
— Joel Bakan, author of The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power
“An amazing lesson in true-world economics! Delightfully presented, powerful, insightful, and important information. What a fun way to fathom a deep and often dark subject”
— John Perkins, author of Hoodwinked and the New York Times bestseller Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
“Economix is a lively, cheerfully opinionated romp through the historical and intellectual foundations of our current economy and our current economic problems. Goodwin has a knack for distilling complex ideas and events in ways that invite the reader to follow the big picture without losing track of what actually happened. Any reader wondering how our economy got to where it is today will find this a refreshing overview.”
— Timothy W. Guinnane, Philip Golden Bartlett Professor of Economic History, Yale University
Author’s Blog
Yow it’s been a while since I’ve posted here, but I just finished a new piece about Project 2025! It wound up being about Project 2025, our wider political climate, our actual climate, dam failures in China in the 1960s. . . .
It’s below. Page references to Mandate to Leadership (https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf) are given in the text itself; sources for other statements are given after the comic.
Thanks for reading!
If you liked this, check out my book! Bookshop.org is a good resource if you want to avoid Amazon. You should absolutely stay away from pirated copies, like this one, right here, just at this link, one free click away: https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/economix/15460336
Again, when page number for the Project 2025 quote is given in the piece, I won’t bother giving it again, but here are the sources for everything else.
Page 1 panel 2: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/05/donald-trump-project-2025
Page 1 panel 3: Flores settlement: Here’s an overview: https://www.cwla.org/history-and-update-on-flores-settlement/
Page 2 panel 1: Disbanding the Directorate didn’t mean that we had zero pandemic response–the Directorate was one of many lines of defense–but not everyone who was lost was replaced. https://www.kff.org/news-summary/usa-today-fact-checks-claim-trump-fired-entire-nsc-global-health-unit/.
Page 2 panel 2: Quote: https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1816171964802699731/video/2
Authors: Mandate for Leadership, pages xvi, xvii.
Page 2 panel 3: 64%: Mandate for Leadership, p885
Page 4 panel 4: The quote is on Mandate for Leadership, p93. As for how Heritage cheerled Bush’s Middle East disasters, see, e.g., here (https://www.heritage.org/middle-east/report/fighting-just-war-iraq) and here (https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/getting-the-facts-straight-iraq).
Page 5 panel 1: Clean fossil fuels are impossible because even if we got rid of every cancerous particulate, using fossil fuels turns carbon into CO2—that’s just how burning coal, gas, or oil works—and CO2 is what’s killing the planet right now.
Page 5 panel 2: https://electrek.co/2024/07/29/california-achieves-100-days-of-100-electricity-demand-met-by-renewables/?fbclid=IwY2xjawEUu6dleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHULCvxCNDj3_ZjbXE_RlsGwinnhBm9WzNhrYGUjRbLPM_-u94JN-OsLtHw_aem_cruKcvaWzQfrubTKXoS2Gg
Page 5 panel 3: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/05/gobsmackingly-bananas-scientists-stunned-by-planets-record-september-heat
Page 5 panel 4: Hausfather quote: https://x.com/hausfath/status/1709217151452954998?lang=en.
Page 6 panel 1: Canada on fire: In New York in the summer of 2023 we were choking on Canadian wildfire smoke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Canadian_wildfires
Hawaii on fire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Hawaii_wildfires
Mountains flooding: In Hurricane Helene, which was followed by another hurricane barely a week later.
Mail-order meds: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/13/health/heat-mail-order-drugs.html?rsrc=flt&smid=tw-share
Cows: https://www.npr.org/2022/06/16/1105482394/cattle-kansas-heat-wave
Once-in-a-century storms: e.g., A record rainfall in September 2023 in New York City (https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/weather/2023/10/05/new-york-city-rain-temperatures-flood-september-), followed by one the next March (https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/new-york-rain-flooding-risk/). Or, if that’s too far in the past, Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
Air Travel: Too many examples to count at this point.
Heat wave: A weather channel headline from August 2023 was “It can’t last forever, right?” I have a screenshot but can’t find it now.
Page 7 panel 3: Around 4,000: 3,600 according to Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_appointments_in_the_United_States
Page 7 panel 4: Bacon: The federal law in question reads:
(ii) Packages for sliced bacon that have a transparent opening shall be designed to expose, for viewing, the cut surface of a representative slice. Packages for sliced bacon which meet the following specifications will be accepted as meeting the requirements of this subparagraph provided the enclosed bacon is positioned so that the cut surface of the representative slice can be visually examined:(a) For shingle-packed sliced bacon, the transparent window shall be designed to reveal at least 70 percent of the length (longest dimension) of the representative slice, and this window shall be at least 11/2 inches wide. The transparent window shall be located not more than five-eighths inch from the top or bottom edge of a 1-pound or smaller package and not more than three-fourths inch from either the top or bottom edge of a package larger than 1 pound.(b) For stack-packed sliced bacon, the transparent window shall be designed to reveal at least 70 percent of the length (longest dimension) of the representative slice and be at least 11/2 inches wide. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2017-title9-vol2/xml/CFR-2017-title9-vol2-sec317-8.xml.
Page 7 panel 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_House_Index
Page 8 panel 1: A picture of the actual doctored map is here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/05/not-just-sharpie-gate-other-times-officials-tried-fabricate-trumps-truth/
Page 8 panel 2: The track of Hurricane Dorian can be found here: https://wcti12.com/news/local/national-hurricane-center-releases-report-on-hurricane-dorian
Page 8 panel 4: Roberts’s quote can be found here: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/01082023/far-right-battle-plan-to-undo-climate-progress-trump-win-2024/
Page 9 panels 2 and 3: https://damfailures.org/case-study/banqiao-dam-china-1975/
Page 9 panel 4: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/09/jared-kushner-let-the-markets-decide-covid-19-fate
Page 10 panel 1: Constitutional means, 33% of the vote: A good summary is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_1932_German_federal_election
Page 10 panel 2: https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-nazi-rise-to-power/how-did-the-nazi-gain-power/gleichschaltung/.
Page 10 panel 4: Roberts quote: https://www.mediamatters.org/project-2025/heritage-foundation-president-celebrates-supreme-court-immunity-decision-we-are
Trump quote: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-christian-voters-turning-point-action/. Different sources vary the punctuation a bit.
Page 11 panel 2 (Narrator’s head is 1). Trump quote: https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/kamala-harris-campaign-laughs-as-trump-rants-about-donuts-to-explain-economy/ar-AA1sobWY
Roberts quote: https://newrepublic.com/article/184651/voters-right-know-kevin-robertss-disturbing-book-says-j-d-vance-project-2025
Page 11 panel 3: Both quotes are from William Shirer’s Mid-Century Journey (page 118 and 183 of my edition).
Page 11 panel 4: This Askhistorians answer goes into some of the funding: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1dohbxh/did_hitler_enrich_himselfadd_to_his_own_coffers/laa6d8h/. It’s worth pointing out that the funders originally thought they could use the Nazis as a tool against the left, but the Nazis wound up taking over, and the funders turned out to be okay with that.
Page 12 panel 1: The quote is from Mandate for Leadership, page xxiii.
Page 12 panel 2: >$150 million: https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-foundation-raises-more-150-million-record-breaking-fundraising-year
Other orgs: Mandate for Leadership, pages xi, xii.
Page 12 panel 3: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/donations-surged-groups-linked-conservative-project-2025-rcna125638
Leo: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/11/2198756/-We-don-t-talk-about-Leonard-The-man-behind-the-right-s-Supreme-Court-supermajority
The other names you can look up if you’re interested.
Page 12 panel 4:
“Right-wing colleges” doesn’t even get the full scope of their influence—at this point your education at any college is going to be affected by right-wing money. For instance, Florida State University isn’t a right-wing college, but if you take an economics course there your professor might be funded by a grant from the Kochs. That sounds okay, but in that case the Kochs had veto power over who was selected (see James Kwak, Economism, Vintage Books, 2018, page 45.)
ALEC and the Federalist Society: The Wikipedia articles are good here.
Direct gifts to judges: Those aren’t just any judges, they’re Aileen Cannon: https://www.propublica.org/article/judge-aileen-cannon-trump-documents-case-travel-disclosures, and Clarence Thomas, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/supreme-court/3031453/clarence-thomas-far-more-gifts-last-20-years-watchdog/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Pmax_USA_Magazine_21-June-Intent-Audience-Signals&gad_source=5&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1PzUtfeGiQMVrGVHAR3NbDdMEAAYAiAAEgLMc_D_BwE.
Page 13 panel 1: Hired Vance and $15 million: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jd-vance-trump-vp-peter-thiel-billionaire/
“Co-founded” https://www.axios.com/2020/01/09/jd-vance-venture-capital-fund-ohio-silicon-valley-peter-thiel
Page 13 panel 2: Thiel quote: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian/.
Page 13 panel 3: https://www.vox.com/voting-rights/2023/8/3/23818858/wisconsin-gerrymander-clarke-wisconsin-election-commision-supreme-court-janet-protasiewicz
Page 13 panel 4: That’s the gist of Trump vs United States, 2024, which vacates a mere 235 years’ worth of constitutional law.
Page 14 panel 2:
Legal Democratic voters: This was a scandal, little reported at the time. Here’s an overview: https://www.gregpalast.com/the-great-florida-ex-con-gamernhow-the-felon-voter-purge-was-itself-felonious/
Obviously bad: They didn’t use that term (duh), but part of the decision in Bush v. Gore, 2000 actually did say that it couldn’t be used as precedent; the only possible reason for that is if the majority knew it was obviously bad.
Democrat got more votes: It depends on how you count them, but every complete count had Gore ahead. An okay summary is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidential_election_recount_in_Florida#cite_note-Pecquet-109
Republican mob: Look up the “Brooks Brothers Riot”
Media normalized it: The film Outfoxed goes into some of the ways.
Page 14 panel 3: 95,000 polling places: https://www.route-fifty.com/management/2024/03/there-are-100000-fewer-election-day-polling-places-2024/394959/
Georgia: https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-election-boards-swing-states;https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/08/georgia-election-board-reasonable-inquiry-rule-trump/
Sabotaged early voting: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/09/north-carolina-robert-kennedy-early-voting-trump-sabotage.html
Workers quitting: https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/05/politics/election-worker-resignations-2024-elections/index.html
Election police: https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/elections/2024/09/06/florida-abortion-amendment-petition-signature-fraud-voters/
Police raids: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/ken-paxton-latino-democrats-raids-19720940.php
Only six: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4878373-house-republicans-election-results/
Page 14 panel 4: Your local paper: The right-wing New York Post lost money for 45 straight years after Rupert Murdoch bought it (so it’s not like the Post is right wing because it’s good for business); https://pressgazette.co.uk/news/new-york-post-profit/
Page 15 panel 1: Calm down: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/calm-down-roe-v-wade-isnt-going-anywhere/2018/07/03/fd470196-7f05-11e8-bb6b-c1cb691f1402_story.html
Yahoo quote: No longer on their site, but a screenshot is here:
Authoritarians: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/01/opinion/trump-milei-wilders-strongmen.html
Mirage: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/08/02/project-2025-trump-inside-story-00172299. Politico is run by a right-wing billionaire, of course: Also, while Politico poses as neutral, it’s run by a right-winger: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/politico-owner-pray-for-trump-mathias-dopfner-axel-springer-1234587243/
Page 17 panel 2:
Brandeis quote: This is often quoted but hard to track down; Here’s a discussion that concludes that he never perhaps put it in exactly this way, but it’s still an accurate summary of his thoughts on the subject: http://www.greenbag.org/v16n3/v16n3_articles_campbell.pdf
TR quote: Page 472 of his autobiography.
FDR quote: From a message to congress in 1938: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/message-congress-curbing-monopolies
Page 17 panel 3:
Chart: Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, page X.
Reagan factoid: Mandate for Leadership page 2.
Stronger antitrust: Lina Khan is driving monopolists crazy actually.
Stronger unions: Biden is the first president ever to walk a picket line (as president at least), and unions have been recovering some juice during his presidency
Page 18 panel 4: Big pharma (which also funds Democrats, duh) funds ALEC: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/big-pharma-alec-voting-trump-maga-cleta-mitchell-1235079548/
Page 18 panel 5: See, e.g., Gilens M, Page BI. Testing theories of American politics: elites, interest groups, and average citizens. Perspectives on Politics; 12(3):572-573.
Page 19, panel 1:
Stronger antitrust: Lina Khan is driving monopolists crazy actually.
Stronger unions: Biden is the first president ever to walk a picket line (as president at least), and unions have been recovering some juice during his presidency
Better enforcement: There’s finally funding to go after rich people’s tax crimes, although that hasn’t necessarily changed the culture at the IRS for now. https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2024/06/how-the-irs-went-soft-on-billionaires-and-corporate-tax-cheats/
Page 20, panel 4: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/21/magazine/heritage-foundation-kevin-roberts.html
Page 21 panel 2: We’re not quite at the point of book burnings yet, but books are already going into dumpsters: https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2024/08/23/new-college-florida-books-dumpser-gender-desantis-rufo/
Writing comics about the economy is not the road to immoderate wealth that one might suppose, which is why I have a day job writing about medicine. So when I started reading about how vitamin D can help with COVID-19, I wound up making this:
(This was made in early 2021; now it’s late 2021, and it holds up pretty well. This meta-analysis [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8557713/pdf/12937_2021_Article_744.pdf] says that there’s no statistical effect, but it includes four sub-analyses, each of which are right on the statistical line–clearly there is an effect, and they just happened to cut the data in a way that juuuuust failed to show it four times. Also, that study confuses odds ratio and relative risk, so I’m not sold on their statistical chops.)
