Is everyone pretending to understand inflation?

Or just me?

Recently encountered this inflation at my local Burger King while enjoying a surprisingly expensive Impossible Whopper. The font makes it seem like they’re bragging, right?

Hi everybody,

It’s Friday morning … and … we have a new episode for you.

The single issue that might decide the upcoming presidential election also happens to be: very confusing. Political economist Mark Blyth helps us understand: how inflation starts, how inflation is stopped, and shares his theory about why the powers-that-be may be just as confused about inflation as we are.

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Have we mentioned we have a premium feed?

Whoa… apparently, listeners get access to ad-free episodes, and the occasional bonus material… interesting if true. Check it out at searchengine.show. If you found this week’s episode on inflation helpful please consider signing up to support the show.

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Gary Oldman playing a gray old man on Slow Horses

A recommendation this week.

Okay, not a recommendation actually, it’s too early in my own viewing experience to recommend. But instead, an observation pegged to Slow Horses, this Apple TV show about spies in Britain. I think, though I can’t swear, that Casey Newton recommended the most recent season on Threads. I really like spy shows, books, or movies, so I am starting way back at season one.

I watched the pilot episode last night and had this uncanny feeling I have all the time but had forgotten about. I am coining and trademarking this feeling, it’s called Prestige Vertigo (unless you, reader, have a better neologism for this).

Prestige Vertigo is when you’re watching a new show that’s meant to feel like prestige television, but you yourself can’t quite tell if it’s good or not. Like it’s wobbling in an uncanny valley of quality. Maybe the performances are nice, but some of the dialogue clangs? Maybe the set designs are incredibly lush, but the plot is a bit dumb.

Prestige Vertigo is a feeling I have all the time. The sensation of being actually unsettled in my viewing experience because I can’t tell if this story is “good” or not, and then experiencing that unsettled feeling as its own form of distraction.

Right now, in its first hour, Slow Horses has given me prestige vertigo. The acting is OK, some of the story moves seem a little silly, and none of the tense bits are giving me tension. Yet. But I have a suspicion it’ll ultimately win me over. Enough people I agree with like it, and for me, even if it just turns out to be an “ok” spy show, that’s probably enough.

I’d just forgotten about this feeling, so I’m relaying it to you.

This week in the comments: has any tv or film given you prestige vertigo lately? Let me know. Also Sruthi asks: do you have any questions about subjects related to the upcoming election that you want explained? This week was inflation, we’re tinkering with one about the border… what else?

Thanks everybody.

We won’t be publishing next week, but we’ll have a new one the Friday after next. I’m really enjoying working on it. It’s about a drug that we’re not 100% sure is a drug.

See you soon,

PJ