Rachael McKelvey

• Economics 2nd #MeToo moment
• Spotify Wrapped
• Pen and paper or electronic lists
• FTX and Alameda Research
• 2021 Census: The most Godless place in England and Wales

Economics 2^nd #MeToo moment
Economics is having its second #MeToo moment, with seemingly little progress since 2018, with the efforts of the American Economics Association (AEA) seemingly only further accommodating sexual misconduct rather than preventing it.

The field of economics is dominated by men, specifically white men and the fact that women feel they can only speak out after the fact anonymously, and those women who can support and amplify their stories can only do so from the safety of a tenured positions says there is still so far to go.

Spotify Wrapped
‘Tis the season, you can’t have missed seeing the listening habits of your nearest, your dearest and internet strangers! Spotify’s ability to turn data harvesting into free marketing should really creep you out if you thought about it for too long.

Spotify’s dominance in music streaming services makes it the world’s largest with 450 million users at the end of its latest quarters with 60% of those users remaining on the free service. For those of paying for premium, thanks to Campbell Walker on Tiktok we now know how much music you need to consume per day in order to take money out of Spotify and give it to Artists – hint it’s probably quite doable.

Pen and paper or electronic lists?
I seem to be having a real shift in personality in the last 18 months, forever the separator…until the pandemic I carried and iPod Nano AND a smartphone, now I just listen to podcasts on my phone like most people.

Well, the same thing happened this week just gone, I needed a list…quite a hefty but quite specifically split list, I have a great small tick box notepad for just that…but could I bring myself to write in it? No. Did I make a spreadsheet with tick boxes and tabs and % complete in a shared document that I can access on my phone? Yes, yes I did. I even used it last week for task that I will have to do again once all the tabs are done but I can just uncheck the boxes and use it again. I think I’m converted.

FTX and Alameda Research
Well well well, the FTX plot thickens with the revelation that when one part of Bankman-Fried’s empire started to faulter they would just move the liability to the stronger looking firm, with Alameda sheltering FTX from $1bn losses and later FTX acting as a lender of last resort for Alameda. These loans appear to have been made primarily using FTX’s own token FTT as their source of lending, so when lenders left Alameda and FTT faltered the house of cards slowly started to collapse.

2021 Census: The most Godless place in Britain
I love it when ONS release data and this week’s data related to cultural identity and religion, a whopping 56m responded to the voluntary religion question, that’s a 94% return rate on Sunday 21^st March 2021! For the first time in Census records less than half the population of England and Wales described themselves as “Christian” but it still remained the most common response to the question.

So where are the most godless places in England and Wales & how do you measure godlessness? Over half the residents of Brighton and Hove (55.2%) reported as having no religion but a staggering 56.7% of respondents in Caerphilly in Wales reported as atheist!

Current watch: An Evening with Jon Ronson at the British Library – I didn’t manage to get a ticket in person, but I did manage to get an online ticket for a wonderful interview with Miranda Sawyer where he talked all things his career and what he is working on next. I absolutely adore Jon and find his work fascinating, I highly recommend anything he’s touched, including this interview with Krishnan Guru-Murthy.

Current read: Make Time: How to focus on what matters every day by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky – Want to get more done but have no idea how and constantly feel guilty for just not ever getting anything done? This is the book for you, design your day better! I really enjoyed the simplicity of this book, the non-judgement of the struggle between the Busy Bandwagon and the Infinity Pools and the real practical experimental element of making your day work for you. A really easy read with real life examples that make you feel motivated to perform your own experiment.

Most impactful listen: Annie Duke Thinks You Should Quit – Freakonomics People I (Mostly) Admire – Former professional poker player Annie Duke talks with Steve Levitt about quitting, why it’s not as bad as people think it is, why it’s so hard to do and how to do it sooner.  Quitting is a subject close to my heart, that for years was rooted in shame but now I see it as one of the greatest acts of kindness a person can do. A fabulous, inspiring and heart-warming chat between quitters.