What was that we were hearing six months ago from Trump supporters, about Black Lives Matter protestors damaging public buildings?
Category: Politics, Religion & Money
Operation Warp Speed
Vaccine production and distribution continues! Getting vaccinated won’t change your DNA, and even if it does, you could use a few extra arms.
The End of the World as We Knew It
In The New Yorker I am in the middle of reading “The Plague Year,” by Lawrence Wright. If anything can be considered a must-read, this article is it. To get some of the gist of it, listen to this podcast.
“I Just Want to Find 11,780 Votes”
Highlights of the call:
The complete call:
Right Down Santa Claus Pain
For an absurdist view of how bizarre the Trump administration has been, listen to the first 25 minutes of this podcast, up to the break. The payoff is worth it, I promise.
The Boom Busts the Bank
This is something I posted on the Facebook alumni page of my high school class.
Senior year, I had Mr. Beauregard for a Psychology elective. He said something about us being the peak of the Baby Boom that really stayed with me.
Mr. Beauregard’s point was, “There are so many of you! Right now you’re competing with each other to get into college. You’ll be competing for jobs, and houses, and everything else.” His insight was one reason why, when taking an Introduction to Economics course in my freshman year of college, I decided to make the subject my major.
While I studied Economics, inflation surged, and we talked about the causes in class. They included the OPEC oil embargo, but its effect was accelerated by our generation coming of age. Before turning 30, even a small house suddenly topped a hundred grand.
This year I’ll start collecting Social Security. It’s no coincidence that 2021 is the first year that the Social Security reserves are starting to decline, as I have highlighted on the graph with a blue arrow.
Addendum: I neglected to mention Nixon ending the gold standard for currency exchange. Letting the dollar lose value as a result is often cited by conservative economists as the single reason why inflation took off. Perhaps it was a trigger, but inflation and unemployment were already rising. Going off the gold standard by itself couldn’t have sustained the rise in inflation over the next ten years. The fact that exchange rates still float, and inflation has been relatively low to very low for many years since then, is proof.