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Dr. Jordan Peterson recently tweeted: Inequality is built into life. This might be neither good nor fair, but one thing is certain: it cannot justly be blamed on capitalism, patriarchy or the west. Some thoughts on the Gini coefficient: https://t.co/5RdMQNLb4Z — Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) September 20, 2018 Which inspired this heated discussed on the… Continue reading Jordan Peterson on Inequality and Hierarchies

An overused phrase is “the only constant is change,” (a second variant is “change is the only constant”) attributed originally to Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher. Yet the evidence suggests things seldom, if ever, change. Yeah, over sufficiently long periods of time (like thousands of years), things change, but things can remain remarkably stable over periods… Continue reading The only constant is change? Not really

The financial media was predicting the end of capitalism, the demise of America, etc. I remember it as a great buying opportunity, and in retrospect, despite their unpopularity, the bailouts were a success. The S&P 500 peaked at 1560 in 2007. Now, just 11 years later, it’s at 2900, so even if you purchased right… Continue reading Lehman crisis-10 years later

A question that comes up on personal finance subs is, how is it possible for people in their late 20’s or early 30’s to have a lot of money, and especially given the media narrative that millennials are broke and struggling under the weight of student loans? Studies that purport negative net-worth for millennials are… Continue reading Student Loan Misconceptions, Student Loan Debt, and How Young People Make Money

It’s amazing how everyone knows about Griggs v. Duke Power. It comes up frequently in online discussion despite being a topic that is not taught in college unless you are studying employment law, yet everyone seems to know about it, even on Reddit subs that have nothing to do with law. It’s also misunderstood, and… Continue reading Getting Griggs Wrong

Economists are at it again predicting doom and gloom from Trump’s latest round of tariffs: Trump’s latest tariffs are about to hit you where it really hurts However the stock market isn’t losing sleep, and the S&P 500 up around 1% since the tariffs were announced: My money is on Wall Street. The media and… Continue reading Economists predicting doom again

Alex Garland’s cult novel The Beach, 20 years on This story went viral, but also interestingly it went viral on Hacker News, a site that is heavily focused on topics pertaining to STEM, with a lot of praise for the book and nostalgia for the period which it was published, the late 90’s–back when good-paying… Continue reading The millennial search for meaning in a meaningless world

Jonathan Haidt has a new book out, the hugely anticipated The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, with co-author Greg Lukianoff. On Reddit and related communities, a lot people are talking about this book. I plan to read it, and I think Scott… Continue reading The Coddling of the American Mind, as a precursor to the IDW

Vox Day may be a genius at many things, but I think he’s wrong regarding the post Darkstream: Trade war is good for the U.S. economy, in which he writes: Instead what happened is what anti-free trade people like myself predicted would happen, and what proper economic theory, conventional economic theory, predicts would happen –… Continue reading Vox Day wrong about trade, GDP

I’ve written extensively about Elon Musk and Tesla, mostly regarding Tesla’s financials, and how, contrary to the doom and gloom by the media, Tesla is not at risk of bankruptcy and predicting that the stock will do well. Although I’m not usually one to entertain conspiracy theories, I believe there is a concerted effort by… Continue reading Debunking the media’s smear campaign against Elon Musk