belated followups

Belately, I had little to say about the BTBA shortlist and M.A.Orthofer said it for me: "It's an ... interesting variety ....."; nor have I any opinion on the winners, except that it's great for New Press and co-im-press to garner their first awards (yes the prize money goes to authors and translators, but the second-order effects are significant and welcome). It seems as though my tastes are diverging from those of the fiction judges; I'm more likely to follow up with the poetry of Hilda Hilst (who made the fiction longlist four years back).

It's been more years since I've spoken about inverted humped yield curves (elaborated in links therein), but that's where we are now (and have been since March). The paucity of prior examples makes any economic forecast highly speculative, but Germany '94 & Australia '12 both saw a ratcheting-down (non-recessionary) of GDP for years after (which may be one reason why the Fed's talking rate cutting this past week). 'Twill be interesting to see how all this unfolds ...