Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

You cannot shame the shameless.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

People are weird.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

When I was faster i was always behind.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Sunday and Monday: A Post and a Zoom on Tom Levenson’s Money for Nothing, and a Chance To Win an Audio Version of the Book

Sunday and Monday: A Post and a Zoom on Tom Levenson’s Money for Nothing, and a Chance To Win an Audio Version of the Book

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We have two events coming up – one on Sunday and one on Monday. Both feature our own Tom Levenson, so if you want an overdose of same, here’s your chance.

We’ll be talking about Tom’s new book…

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Tom Levenson's New Book! 1

…which is about a bunch of stuff centered on the South Sea Bubble of 1720–the first great stock market boom, fraud, bubble and bust.  There are all-too-obvious connections to our own day, which we can talk about. Also, the book spends a fair amount of time connecting financial innovation, with all the wealth and woe that has carried with it, to the larger change in how people were figuring out the material world back than, a transformation we now call the scientific revolution. That too is still with us.

A good time will be had by all (or the beatings will continue, in Balloon Juice’s finest tradition.)

The details:

Sunday at 6pm:  Medium Cool – Money for Nothing: Ask Me Anything with Tom Levenson

Monday at 8pm:  Balloon Juice Zoom – Money for Nothing: Ask Me Anything with Tom Levenson
(8pm is the tentative time; final time to be determined):

Everyone is welcome to attend one or both sessions.

?Tom was able to score 4 audio passes (!) for Money for Nothing, to be given as gifts at the events.

How do I sign up to have a chance to win an audio pass, you ask?

Comment below as you normally would, but if you want to be in the drawings for the gifts, say so in the comments.  Be sure to indicate whether you plan to do the Medium Cool Post, the Zoom, or both.

I will scan the comments for MC, ZOOM, or BOTH

I will also try to read the comments a bit more closely – for those who either won’t read the entire post or who might have read it but are unlikely to follow directions.  Yes, I have met you guys before.  :-)

?More About The Zoom

Zoom will be hosted and moderated by Immanentize.

We’ll start with about 15 minutes BGinCHI asking Tom some questions, author-to-author.  Then we’ll go to questions from the audience.

Everyone will start out muted, but you can enter your questions for Tom through Chat function, either while BG and Tom are talking, or afterwards.

If you like, you can even ask your questions in the comments of this post, and we’ll collect those for the Zoom, too.

We’re still working out the final details for the format, but we’ll share them as soon as we can.

IMPORTANT:  We want to avoid unwanted visitors crashing the zoom, so if you want to attend the zoom, please send me email so I can reply with the Zoom password.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

82Comments

  1. 1.

    Mary G

    Already purchased the Audible version, so don’t want to be in the drawing.  Highly recommend it!

    Will try to attend Sunday, depending on status of Christmas decorating.

  4. 4.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    I’d love to attend! I have the next few days off, so I have some free time.

    Here’s a question I have for Mr. Levenson:

    Have you ever read The Half Has Never Been Told by Edward E. Baptist? It’s a book that details the origins of American Capitalism from American chattel slavery. If so, do you have any thoughts about it?

    I had the opportunity to read it during a college Early American history course and thought it was very insightful as well as powerful

  8. 8.

    trollhattan

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Color TV.

    NB My child does not believe me that one once had color/not color options when selecting a television. Nor further, that most television programs broadcast was not color and there was considerable debate whether the significant extra cost and technical pickiness were worth the bother.

  12. 12.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    @WaterGirl:

    I guess both, just in case anything comes up and I can’t attend one. Do you remember my email address or do you want me to send an email?

  18. 18.

    FelonyGovt

    @trollhattan:  We were the last on our block to have a color TV.

    I would love to attend the Zoom on Sunday and be entered in the drawing (although I expect to buy the Kindle edition). WaterGirl, I will email you.

  26. 26.

    NotMax

    One could adequately point to the Mississippi Company bubble as an example pre-dating the South Seas debacle.

    /history nerd

  27. 27.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    @satby:

    You really are a piece of work.

    Thanks for reminding me I’m such a piece of shit fuck up. I know I’m a fuck up. I don’t know why I even fucking bother half the time

  29. 29.

    satby

    @Goku (Amerikan Baka):

    Act 1 throw out something to derail a topic

    Act 2 get a response pointing out the derail

    Act 3 butthurt

    Act 4 people not as cognizant of your M.O. rush in to defend poor little you, further derailing any conversation.

    mission accomplished, you.

  32. 32.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    @satby:

    How the fuck else did you expect me to react? You blatantly attacked me. I thought it was a nice question related to the topic of the book: financial history. I wasn’t trying to fucking derail anything! I said the other night I just wanted to move on.

  37. 37.

    Amir Khalid

    Bianca’s litter tray is now empty. Her food and water bowls have been put away. There’s still about 2kg of her food that she doesn’t need anymore. I didn’t get to kiss her head this morning.

  40. 40.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Maybe she has a point? In the past I have made “scenes” to say the least.

    I know not everyone is going to like me. I get it. But she didn’t have to do what she did. I meant no harm; I didn’t think before I typed; I admit it probably isn’t a good question to ask an author at a zoom event for their book. It was something I knew about the subject, I thought they were related, and wanted to ask the question. I thought it was relevant. I didn’t think anything of it at the time

    I’m just so sick of drama crap like this. I just want it to stop

  45. 45.

    Aleta

    @Omnes Omnibus: He can reasonably expect to not be repeatedly demeaned and personally attacked on John’s blog, since there’s a comment policy against targeted harassment of other commenters.

  46. 46.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Here’s the thing: I didn’t even mean to. It was a dumb comment in retrospect, but it was just a dumb comment that could’ve been ignored

  48. 48.

    satby

    @Aleta: pointing out a rude question in a planned event isn’t targeted harrassment. It could be a teachable moment. But thanks, we were missing the Act 4 player, who can usually be relied on to be you.

    It’s a game, but not mine. I’m normally not even on at night.

  52. 52.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    @satby:

    Look. You’re entirely right. It was a rude comment. I’m sorry. I didn’t think it through. I’ll try to police myself better in the future. Have a nice night and stay safe

  55. 55.

    WaterGirl

    @Amir Khalid: Oh my gosh, Amir, I did not know you had lost Bianca.  I am so sorry.  I have been so busy with the calendar that I haven’t been able to read most of the threads for the better part of a week.

  63. 63.

    Aleta

    @satby:  You often insult him.   You’ve tried to shame him several times for making his own decisions about masks and  working in a grocery store.  Seems like targeting to me.

  65. 65.

    WaterGirl

    @satby: Sometimes I curse you (in the nicest possible way) for having a nym that autocorrect insists on “correcting”.  I suppose it would lear if it was a capital S, but that’s not how you spell it.

  66. 66.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    @Aleta:

    I appreciate what you’re doing, but I think it’s best to just let this go. Satby has made her mind up about me. And maybe she’s right about how I act sometimes. It’s just something I need to work on. I “spoke” without thinking and made a careless, dumb, and rude comment. I’ve done it before.

  72. 72.

    Tom Levenson

    @Goku (Amerikan Baka):

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    @satby:

    Not to rev up a beef that I hope is dead, (in fact the reverse)…

    1. sorry for not piping up earlier–dinner and helping my son with some school work intervened.
    2. Don’t mind the original question–it seems OK to me to ask a writer if they were influenced by or simply liked another work connected to the topic.
    3. As it happens, I know of that book but haven’t read it–I’m kind of a seventeenth/eighteenth c. kind of guy, more centered on the scientific revolution and its implications and effects than on finance. It just happened that a big effect was on early financial capitalism (and on 21st c. such shenanigans as well, as it turns out. All those physics PhDs mathing up financial derivatives).

    So–friends?

  76. 76.

    lurker

    @WaterGirl: am interested in the chats.  More likely to make sunday than monday.  I will email you about the password, to confirm that trollhattan has it correct. Email will likely come from a different email than the one I registered with on the site.  Am also interested in a drawing for the audio code.  Do you want a drawing of a cat? dog? sun and moon?  (Keeping in mind I have skills for stick figures…)  Still, drawing would be better than moving refrigerators or color tvs.

  81. 81.

    NotMax

    Making people jump through additional hoops to get the password seems overkill. With four Zooms on turkey day there was a grand total of one noxious a-hole, who was booted right quick.

    Also, no way to determine if the person sending you the e-mail is legit or troll.

  82. 82.

    WaterGirl

    @lurker: Ha!

    When you write, can you include that you are the “lurker” who wrote comment #76?  Or if you’ve already written, can you write again so I can make the connection?

    thanks

Comments are closed.