Interesting Noah Smith article Inflation is real; now it’s up to the Fed I generally agree with Noah that Biden is powerless to reduce inflation, and that it will either require the fed abruptly raising rates a lot (which will not happen), a crisis or recession (also very unlikely, IMHO), or simply inflation returns to… Continue reading More about Inflation: Do Not Expect the Fed to Do Anything

Bitcoin continues to fall since it made a new high at around 69,000 last week; it now trades at $64,000. It’s evident that Bitcoin is struggling to break the $60-70k barrier in spite of endless hype online, by major pundits, and even Apple CEO Tim Cook being the latest notable public convert to the digital… Continue reading Bitcoin , the Big Inevitable Disappointment

It is taken as a truism , by the media, pundits, and lay people alike, that the U.S. political system is overflowing with corruption, and that politicians are lining their pockets with impunity. But has anyone actually tried to substantiate these claims beyond just rhetoric? I have found to the contrary that: 1. Corruption and… Continue reading The Myth of Political Corruption in the U.S.

A typical Twitter exchange might go like this: “Coal kills _____ millions of people per year.” (Possibly a link to a related article, which only .01% of people who see the tweet will actually read in its entirety.) And then someone like Jordan Peterson will reply or re-tweet an argument along the lines of, “Such… Continue reading On the False Epistemological Overconfidence of Social Media

A Google search shows considerable interest in the so-called loneliness epidemic: I have long argued that the purported loneliness epidemic is a creation of the media/pundits and does not exist. By writing hundreds of articles about it, people will be influenced to believe it is real. 1. America has high rates of domestic violence and… Continue reading Even more skepticism about the ‘loneliness epidemic’

All over Reddit there are tons of posts of people getting richer than ever. It’s like the gilded age all over again, but the top hats, canes, and horse-drawn carriages have been replaced by inconspicuous button-down dress shirts and Teslas. They, the ‘new rich’, are not losing sleep over the ‘national suicide’ that Eric and… Continue reading The New Gilded Age

The always-ineffectual Rand Paul grilled Fauci over Wuhan lab funding back in May 2021, which was 6 months ago, and what came of it? Absolutely nothing. Remember a year ago when Ted Cruz ripped into Jack Dorsey. He really showed him, didn’t he. Trump is still suspended for Twitter, and nothing changed. And at around… Continue reading So Much For That, Part???

Scott’s article the Epistemic Minor Leagues went viral. As a nitpick, I think a more accurate title would have been ‘intellectual minor leagues’. Epistemology is more concerned with how humans acquire knowledge or apply knowledge to justify their beliefs, as opposed to being a descriptor or quantifier of individual knowledge. He even calls it that… Continue reading Experts vs. Non-experts

In Jan. 2021, I wrote: …Tesla stock is worth $850 billion, up 30% just 9 days into the new year, and only $150 billion from my target. Yes, technically, it has not hit $1 trillion, but I think it is a foregone conclusion it will happen very soon. With 2 months remaining for 2021, Tesla… Continue reading Tesla at $1 trillion, and the wealth tax

Antitrust has been in the news for years, with new headlines every month, yet Google stock keeps going up, suggesting that investors are not concerned. I dunno why people keep wasting their time with this. Wherever I see proposed/tentative antitrust action against Google, Facebook, or any other dominant tech company, there are always holes in… Continue reading Antitrust: Much Ado About Nothing Again