I saw this article from QZ.com: Big Pharma spent an additional $9.8 billion on marketing in the past 20 years. It worked In 1997, drug companies spent roughly $17.1 billion on marketing for prescription drugs and any health conditions that may be associated with them. (A relatively paltry $600 million was spent to market condition… Continue reading Memo to media: stop citing numbers without indexing them

META up 20% today, on top of huge gains over the past month, as I said would happen. It’s going back to $350 soon. TSLA up 30% over the past month, going back to $300. TUR is still falling, also as I said would happen. As usual, the financial media wrong again. All those predictions… Continue reading META stock surges 20% on huge earnings + buybacks: right again

My second explanation for the obesity epidemic, especially in the US, is the ‘rational consumer’ hypothesis. The idea is people are voluntarily making a choice to overeat, fully aware of the consequences and weighing the pros and cons, similar to people who continue to smoke despite the warning labels. There are no shortage of articles… Continue reading The ‘rational consumer’ explanation for obesity

The biggest problem with the college tuition debate is that it does not sufficiently address the root of the problem. My argument has always been that the student loan debt ‘problem’ won’t be fixed until either the alternatives to college improve–and or–the returns to college worsen. But I don’t see any hope of either of… Continue reading The student loan debt problem will continue until the alternatives improve

I think when people lament about what is perceived as the breakdown or dissolution of law and order, it’s not about solving crimes per say, but some higher idealization of fairness and need for reassurance that good will prevail. Hence, the Twitter files, or the Pfizer files, or the celebration of the arrest of SBF,… Continue reading The transience of the culture wars

It’s time for a one-month update about my BTC trading method, which I have been running myself personally since early November 2022. I had only had a single losing day this year when BTC surged but otherwise this method is like pulling money out of an ATM. Hardly any work involved, just entering the trade… Continue reading Update on BTC/QQQ Trading Method: Still Crushing It

Shrinkflation is an interesting topic because it combines two seemingly contradictory things: inflation and shrinkage. Once related to the heterodox fringe, it is now mainstream, and there is even a Wikipedia page about it: Shrinkflation is a rise in the general price level of goods per unit of weight or volume, brought about by a… Continue reading Shrinkflation: Why Have Trucks Bucked this Trend?

Richard Hanania’s article Why the Media is Honest and Good went hugely viral. It’s interesting how many comments are praising the article by many of the same people who since 2016 unanimously expressed skepticism or outright antipathy about the ‘liberal media’, such as vaccines or the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story–and rightfully so–but… Continue reading “The media is honest, except when it isn’t”

From Freddie deBoer Remote Work Shifts Costs From Management Onto Employees. I think he’s off the mark here. We don’t see other people at restaurants because we get food ordered in. We don’t see people at the grocery store because we get our groceries delivered. Who is ‘we’? From my end, the food stores and… Continue reading WFH is not like an office expense

The biggest problem with the college tuition debate is that it does not sufficiently address the root of the problem. My argument has always been that the student loan debt ‘problem’ won’t be fixed until either the alternatives to college improve–and or–the returns to college worsen. But I don’t see any hope of either of… Continue reading The student loan debt problem will continue until the alternatives improve