what i'm reading§
"When the Sovereign Contracts: Troubling the Public/Private Distinction in International Law"§
My jaw dropped when I read this paragraph:
...[A]bout fifty percent of sovereign-debt crises involve litigation, and most of such litigation involves a hedge fund plaintiff. These hedge fund plaintiffs are not the original creditors of the sovereigns. Instead, they purchase “distressed” debt—debt that the debtor is unlikely to be able to repay in full—on the secondary market, for a fraction of its original value. By suing for full repayment on the original terms of the bonds, they can make profits of up to 300%-400%. These suits usually take place in U.S. courts, and specifically courts in New York such as the District Court for the Southern District of New York (S.D.N.Y.). This is because more than half of debt contracts between private creditors and developing nations are governed by New York law.
The article is about the principle of Foreign Sovereign Immunity, which is the inability of a plaintiff state to hold a foreign state accountable to the plaintiff's rules. But there needs to be some exception when states act in a commercial capacity, like taking out loans from banks or buying military weaponry. This is the 'commercial exception' to Foreign Sovereign Immunity.
The author argues that the commercial exception is applied unequally, and is overwhelmingly used against Third World states where their commercial activity is heavily tied with domestic development and therefore with questions of that state's sovereignty.
The question is way out of my purview, but the idea of a hedge fund extorting an entire country for profit so nakedly is crazy to me. But AFAIK the whole system is like this. I'll defer to Mia Wong's primer on shadow banking for the It Could Happen Here podcast.
what i'm listening to§
mazzy star§
I've been on a mazzy star kick since The Sopranos used "Look On Down From The Bridge" as an outro needle-drop.
As much as the band is better known for their yearnful dream-pop hits, I also really appreciate the off-kilter psych-jazz of the title track from She Hangs Brightly.
what i'm watching§
The Paper Chase (1973)§
Timothy Bottom is an extinct species of 70s guy. The stupid sideburns, the mop of hair, the underwhelming physique. It feels, these days, that even the most mundane of dramas needs a leading man with muscles bursting from his tailored Nordstrom T-shirt. What are those for? You're a table waiter.
Ganbare, Nakamura-kun!§
Slop, utter fucking slop.
There's something melancholy about queer love stories set in the past. (Nakamura-kun isn't explicitly historical, but the appeal is that it's evocative of the Tezuka style of the 80s). I had the same experience reading Lavender House by Evander Mills. They're a kind of reparative reading of the past.
Heather Mills in Feeling Backwards talks about a reading of history that tries to rescue its queer subjects from the past. That kinda hit me when I was watching Patlabor in 2021 and projecting gay and lesbian readings on characters.
The lesson is that the only real queer media is the thing you re-watch so many times you unlock the secret queercoding.
what i'm working on§
boss liked my demo so i'm continuing work on the sign-in kiosk from last week.
something i liked§
11,000§
that's the current word count of my undisclosed fiction project. that's a lot of words to have written. and yet not enough.
something i hated§
rum§
this shit is so scary how am i already this tipsy
a picture:§
what would neil young do§
Probably smoke weed and play guitar and run a failed electric vehicle company.