Every year on the third Monday of January, most government and business activity in America grinds to a standstill to pay homage to ‘the dreamer’. But maybe it’s time to retire MLK, for the following reasons: 1. MLK is the only American to have an entire national holiday dedicated in his name, after Lincoln and… Continue reading Time to Retire MLK
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The Daily View: 1/17/2016 (lots of stuff)
From Fred Reed: The Inevitability of Eugenics I predict within 50 years America will start giving Eugenics a serious consideration as a way to tackle the growing entitlement spending problem, which by then will be much bigger than it is now if trends persist. Liberals and conservative alike need to get over this squeamishness of… Continue reading The Daily View: 1/17/2016 (lots of stuff)
Cancer: The Mid-life Killer
In the past week, two famous people died of cancer at a relatively ‘young’ age: David Bowie, 69, and Alan Rickman, also aged 69, which is about 5-7 years below the average male life expectancy in western countries. Of note, David Bowie had a long history of heart disease (being thin apparently didn’t help), nearly… Continue reading Cancer: The Mid-life Killer
The Daily View : Stocks Plunge, RIP American Dream, Why Prescription Drugs are so Expensive
Here is the backstory behind the 5,000% price hike of Daraprim. In Martin’s defense, the drug is classified as an ‘orphan drug‘, which means there is little demand due to the rarity of the underlying condition it is supposed to treat. In order for phrama companies to profit from orphan drugs, they have to charge… Continue reading The Daily View : Stocks Plunge, RIP American Dream, Why Prescription Drugs are so Expensive
Classification of Ideologies
Inspired by the table above (can’t find the source), I created a classification of my own, but this is far from complete. Welfare Liberal: Humans are imperfect or savages upon conception, and must be perfected with the help of the state in order to help create ‘equal outcomes’ where no one should be allowed to… Continue reading Classification of Ideologies
Collapse Can Wait, Part 2
Aaron is right about America’s reserve currency status, and also there is the petrodollar in addition to the ‘flight to safety’ and other factors that are keeping interest rates low and the dollar high, all thanks to American exceptionalism. As bad as the US economy may seem, other countries are worse, although I am more… Continue reading Collapse Can Wait, Part 2
The Daily View: ‘Longest Depression’, Basic Income, Pinterest
From Huffingtonpost: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the ‘Longest Depression’ Sounds like goalpost moving, where slightly mediocre growth becomes a ‘depression’. The 2008 recession, while deep and sudden, was narrow, only lasting about 16 months until growth picked up, where it has remained. Hardly a decade. Also, the authors seem to be cherry… Continue reading The Daily View: ‘Longest Depression’, Basic Income, Pinterest
The Moral Decay Conundrum
A commenter writes Yeah, but the rapid fall here bugs me. We went from a moon shot to mass rape in the town square within 50 years. I thought we should have had at least a couple hundred years of coasting. Hmmm…the weird thing is that while America has evidence of social decay, economic and… Continue reading The Moral Decay Conundrum
Does the Nation Make the Genius?
From Social Matter (Identity And Civilization: Why Humanity Depends On Ethnoculture): … nationalism becomes an enemy of civilization when it believes that Shakespeare is great because he was English, rather than that England is great because it produced Shakespeare. But the HBD argument is that genes produce geniuses, not nations. Maybe it so happen that… Continue reading Does the Nation Make the Genius?
Better or Worse?
Two contrasting viewpoints: Pessimistic: The Truly New Year Optimistic: Financial Fridays: The Stock Market is Bullshit New inventions and technologies would outpace the demand for those commodities so that as we needed their functionality more, the prices would fall. Think about computers: your price per speed and functionality in your computer has gone down every… Continue reading Better or Worse?