Month: July 2022

I saw this Mega Millions ticket wins $1.34B lottery jackpot Why it matters: The jackpot rolled 29 times since April and if no one won Friday’s drawing lottery officials said the prize had the potential to grow to $1.7 billion for Tuesday’s drawing, which would have been the nation’s largest lottery prize. These lotteries have… Continue reading Lotteries and the Age of Extreme Payouts

It’s time to review the scorecard. I looks like I was correct on everything, except for Facebook, which is still below $160/share on weak earnings. Correct: Amazon stock surged 10% on earnings, on its way to being worth $10 trillion soon. Bezos will be the world’s second trillionaire after Musk, and Amazon stock will go… Continue reading Mid-Year Predictions Scorecard

It’s interesting how conservatism has evolved in America in recent decades. Starting in the early eighties with Reagan and all the way up until around 2008-2012–ending with the Global Financial Crisis and its aftermath, and the forgettable campaigns of Romney and McCain–the Republican party was heavily influenced by the the so-called Chicago School, composed of… Continue reading The Future of the GOP is Snoop Dogg

I saw this thread on Reddit What do you think the hardest major is? A few observations: 1. I think this calls into question the popular notion that college is dumbed-down or coddling students, contrary to Jonathan Haidt, Bari Weiss and others that college is like daycare. I am pretty sure organic chemistry is harder… Continue reading The college experience, how bad is it?

I forgot to include this my post yesterday, but Elon Musk dumped his Bitcoin holdings: Elon Musk’s Tesla sells most of its Bitcoin holdings (Technically, Tesla sold it, not Elon, but he authorized it.) This comes after he promised not to sell: And claiming Tesla has ‘diamond hands’, meaning not selling: Billionaires will only look… Continue reading Elon Musk’s Bitcoin Betrayal

This is going viral today: Three Charged In First Ever Cryptocurrency Insider Trading Tipping Scheme This comes a day after I published my post yesterday about financial crime. The timing could not have been better. From the indictment: On at least 14 occasions beginning at least in June 2021 and continuing through April 2022, ISHAN… Continue reading The Daily View 7/22/2022: Coinbase Insider Trading and Tesla

I saw this article going viral: US Doesn’t Care About Financial Crimes There are some common myths that I dispel in an earlier article, but I will expound on: -That financial crimes that affect the poor or ‘average people’ are ignored -That the rich are privileged and can get away with crime -That crimes which… Continue reading Doe the US Not Care About Financial Crimes? Likely not

I saw this Noah Smith article A Time of Troubles: The U.S. has fundamental strengths, but politics puts us at a difficult juncture But despite these strengths, the U.S. is in trouble, because of politics. It would be foolish not to acknowledge this. The recent string of Supreme Court decisions that is upending the political-economic… Continue reading The stakes are low for US politics, and America’s rivals are weak and apathetic

Over and again, all of these people who are held up by the media as geniuses or experts keep being wrong, whether it’s about Covid (specifically, the ‘health experts’ vastly overestimating the efficacy of masks and vaccines at stopping the spread of Covid), investing (such as Cathie Wood, who was hyped by the media in… Continue reading Fixing the Expertise Misallocation Problem