Brothers Judd Blog

If two New Hampshire men aren't a match for the Devil, we might as well give the country back to the Indians. -Stephen Vincent Benet (1898-1943)

September 9, 2026

Uncategorized

hISTORY eNDS EVERYWHERE:

How ‘egalitarian’ Sweden became more comfortable with wealth (Håkan Johansson & Axel Vikström, September 8, 2026, The Conversation)

While for a long time Sweden was a country with some of the world’s highest taxes, this no longer applies to capital taxation. For instance, it no longer has a wealth tax, an inheritance tax or a property tax. The ideal of egalitarianism doesn’t seem to align with patterns of wealth accumulation, especially at the very top. […]


We used Forbes and UN data and found that in 2025 Sweden ranked fourth globally, with 4.7 dollar billionaires per million people. When excluding micro-states (fewer than one million people), Sweden is outnumbered only by Singapore (9.9), Hong Kong (9.1) and Cyprus (7.3), but before Switzerland (4.6) in fifth place. It ranks much higher than some of the world’s largest economies like the US (2.7), Germany (2.1), Canada (2.0) and the UK (0.8).

It is difficult to say for sure whether changes in regulation and wealth concentration have altered cultural norms, but there are clear indicators. Younger generations are now expressing strong materialistic values. When they rank what matters in life, earning money comes second to being with friends and far more important than being with family or getting an education.

Young Swedes and adults alike dream of building a “money machine” by investing in stocks so they can exit the labour market long before retirement. This might be surprising to some, since Sweden has long been shaped by a strong work ethic, both politically and culturally.

Health

MIND CONTROL:

The surprising science of how focusing your attention may fight inflammation (Richard Sima, 9/08/26, Washington Post)

The study, published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, suggests that our brain and attention may change how our immune system responds to inflammation. When people tried to distract themselves from an itch, it caused the inflammation — as measured by redness and swelling of the skin — to grow larger in size and last longer than if they focused their attention on it.

The research adds to growing evidence that the brain and the immune system — long thought to be relatively separate and distinct from each other — actually have an intimate relationship. Dysfunctional immune activity and inflammation have been linked to several psychiatric and neurological disorders, including schizophrenia, depression, long covid and dementia. In fact, recent research has found that our brains may trigger an immune response even from seeing someone who looks as though they might have an infectious condition.

Long War

YOU GO, GIRL!:

C.I.A. SUBSIDIZED FESTIVAL TRIPS; Hundreds of Students Were Sent to World Gatherings (NY Times, Feb. 21, 1967)


A New York freelance writer disclosed yesterday that the Central Intelligence Agency had supported a foundation that sent hundreds of Americans to World Youth Festivals in Vienna in 1959 and Helsinki, Finland, in 1962.

Gloria Steinem, a 30-year-old graduate of Smith College, said the C.I.A. has been a major source of funds for the foundation, the Independence Research Service, since its formation in 1958. Almost all of the young persons who received aid from the foundation did not know about the relationship with the intelligence agency, Miss Steinem said.

Ironically, she said, many of the students who attended the festivals have been criticized as leftists. The festivals are supposed to be financed by contributions from national student unions, but are, in fact, largely supported by the Soviet Union. Miss Steinem said she had become convinced that American students should participate in the World Youth Festivals after she spent two years in India.

“I came home in 1958 full of idealism and activism, to discover that very little was being done,” she said. “Students were not taken seriously here before the civil rights movement, and private money receded at the mention of a Communist youth festival.”

Miss Steinem said she had talked to some former officers of the National Student Association, who told her C.I.A. money might be available to finance American participation in the seventh postwar festival, scheduled for Vienna in the summer of 1959. The former association officers had had ties with the C.I.A. while serving the association, which last week conceded it had taken money from the intelligence agency since 1952.

“Far from being shocked by this involvement I was happy to find some liberals in government in those days who were far-sighted and cared enough to get Americans of all political views to the festival,” Miss Steinem said.

I’m generally a fan of Robert Harris, but there’s an incredibly silly bit in his thinly veiled Tony Blair novel: The Ghost. [Spoiler alert] The big “scandal” at the heart of the novel is that the former PM’s wife had worked for the CIA . Like that wouldn’t make her even cooler….

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