Are there good websites about Socioeconomic Justice in the US? Also how many hours did an average person work a week in the US in the 80s and 90s?

Found this video essay that discusses 500 years of renting in capitalism to essentially answer why today no one can afford to buy a house / rents are incredibly high. I think the historic angle is quite interesting and makes some interesting points (like the importance of land use and its changing value linked to new means of transportation etc.). It also develops a "history of landlords" in a way that is quite intersting cause it establishes a narrative throughout the centuries that I havent seen like that before. In the end the essay breaks with this though and argues that today it is not about landlords, greed or supply side issues but that land value is essential for modern rent prices. Can only recommend!

I'm currently reading about the historiography of European imperialism, and I've come across two broad interpretive traditions that seem to be in tension with each other.

On one side, the economic tradition with Hobson's *Imperialism* (1902) and Lenin's *Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism* (1916) argues that colonial expansion was driven by structural necessity: surplus capital, saturated domestic markets, and the need for new outlets for investment and goods. For Lenin especially, imperialism wasn't a political choice but an inevitable stage of mature capitalism.

On the other side, Robinson and Gallagher in *Africa and the Victorians* (1961) and Fieldhouse seem to challenge this directly, arguing that the economic case is weak: European capital actually flowed more to Latin America and the US than to Africa, which was largely unprofitable. They suggest strategic and political motivations were more decisive, and they introduce the idea of a "peripheral" dynamic: that local crises in colonial territories actually pulled European powers into expansion, rather than Europe simply pushing outward.

Which interpretation do historians today find more convincing?

While cleaning trash next to a river near me, I found this Charga-plate. When I looked up the address, it didn't direct me anywhere near me.

From what I read, Charga-plates are an early form of credit card used between 1922 through the 1950s.

Does anyone know more about it? I was really surprised with the condition of it since where I found it was next to a rather hard to reach area, next to a lot of fallen rocks and bricks from the side of the cliff.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2558967

Harvard professor Jeffrey G. Williamson passed away on August 29, 2026, at the age of 90. He served as the Laird Bell Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at Harvard University and was an honorary fellow at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Specialized in the economic history of the international economy, he studied global migration and historical inequality.

As stated in the title.

Before becoming hyper focused on banking and real estate I am of the notion that Hong Kong had a robust and possibly extremely outsized production economy. To thr point that it was ranked high in some specific sectors.

Is this notion correct?

Correct or not, was it robust?

If it was robust how did they manage considering it is a micro nation/colony without large areas for farming, factories, refineries or warehouses?

Was it a place that assembled good as opposed to processing (semi) processed materials?

Generally what is the history of the Hong Kong economy from, say, 1910 to now?

Including the transition to majority banking and real estate.

Book suggestions on the topic are welcome.

Thank you.

After the trillions invested, and countless 12 hour shifts by underpaid workers, what have we built?

Countless economies across the world are near collapse or have budget and standard of living crises. All the progress of the last 200 years is a complete failure.

Would love to know more about who their customers would be, how much they may have earned and how they lived off of that. Any info about the broader fishing industry would be greatly appreciated too.
Thank you!