Part 1 At the individual level, it’s possible that Americans do not actually spend that much on healthcare relative to the rest of the world, even if America, collectively, spends the most on healthcare in terms of per-capita GDP. I saw this picture going viral on Reddit. This counters the left-wing narrative of healthcare un-affordability.… Continue reading Why Healthcare is So Expensive in America, Part 2

Inflation is in the news again Inflation rises at 5.4% yearly pace in September, CPI shows, and stays at 30-year high The pace of inflation over the past year, meanwhile, edged up to 5.4% in September from 5.3% in the prior month. That’s more than double the Federal Reserve’s 2% average target. As many have… Continue reading The inflation debate, continued

Some people turn to stand-up comedy for entertainment. For me, Tooleb’s twitter is my go-to source. Academic careers have three stages.1) The love phase: you want to devote your life to learning2) The reputation phase: you discover the need to get established3) The status phase: you are trapped into a hostile rank-obsessed rent seeking machine… Continue reading The Daily View 10/13/2021: Twitter Edition

I’m watching our National suicide which I am powerless to stop or even slow for reasons that I simply cannot fathom. Perhaps I’ve just outlived my time; I cannot recognize this world hell bent on madness and self harm to aid a communist superpower rival rising in the east. #NO https://t.co/Bn3HMNT2Mj — Eric Weinstein (@EricRWeinstein)… Continue reading The National Suicide

Facebook is in the news again because of controversy regarding whistleblower accusations that Facebook management suppressed information regarding the mental health effects of using Facebook. My prediction-like similar media controversy in 2018 in which I was correct that Facebook would recover and the stock would go higher–is that the whole thing will blow over. Nothing… Continue reading Skepticism about the link between envy and social media

I saw this article going viral How does the economy work? A new Fed paper suggests nobody really knows It’s not that hard to understand: an economy is a set of inputs: government spending, personal consumption, innovation/technology, private investment, etc. and then based on these inputs the economy either grows or shrinks, and then this… Continue reading Economics is not that hard to understand or predict

Why Is It So Hard to Be Rational? Often, I asked myself, How would Greg think? I adopted his habit of tracking what I knew and how well I knew it, so that I could separate my well-founded opinions from my provisional views. Bad investors, Greg told me, often had flat, loosely drawn maps of… Continue reading Money Does Not Buy Popularity, Power, or Influence

The mechanisms that in the past would have reshuffled the social hierarchy–boom and bust cycles, recession, war, social upheaval, bear markets, etc.–have all but ceased, the result being an unending boom, a prolonged peace (BLM and antifa skirmishes not withstanding), and a ruling and professional class that is not only wealthier than ever, but more… Continue reading On the Permanent Ascendance of Elites

Saw this How To Fix America In One Easy Step The root reason behind the likely pending fall of American Empire is the emergence of a super-class of Left-leaning liberals (I would call them Leftist) whose basic psychology is fundamentally different from their fellow countrymen and from everyone else in the world. They are Western,… Continue reading The question of collapse, part 2: Diversity, China, Unrest

Came upon these two interesting posts about super-forecasting and the stock market, which I have lumped together because they pretty much cover the same subject matter. Superforecasting for Dummies Reality-Plus A Few Unpleasant Truths (That Can Make You a Lot of Money) From the Reality-Plus: Here’s the dirty little secret that most wealth management companies… Continue reading Superforecasting and A Few Unpleasant Truths