The Achilles Killer

There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help and what they cannot.--Plato

Ned gets in tonight. It is amazing that he can just work from here.

The  trade-off between raising interest rates to fight inflation and resulting unemployment is often represented through a relationship known as the Phillips curve. Expect some serious debate over this relationship as the Democrats try to start raising spending without raising taxes, just like Republicans.

San Diego retail stores report shoplifting has jumped 25% to 30% since disposable bags were banned in California.

The Trump administration's reported delay of a $20 bill redesign featuring 19th-century abolitionist Harriet Tubman actually aligns with internal timelines produced during the Obama administration, three current or former government officials appointed by President Obama told the Washington Post. Larry R. Felix, the director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing from 2006 to 2015, said the probability of releasing a concept design in 2020 had always been low due to security and fraud risks, despite then-Treasury Secretary Jack Lew's desire for an unveiling that coincided with the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. Bureau of Engraving and Printing Director Leonard R. Olijar, also appointed by Obama, told Congress last fall that the Advanced Counterfeit Deterrence Steering Committee worked alongside his bureau to decide in 2013 that the $20 bill would not be released until 2030 — with no plan for a 2020 release of the Tubman design.
(This "delay" has been translated as evidence of some overarching Trump administration bigotry.)

Matt Carpenter is hitting .214.

One-quarter of Americans are religiously unaffiliated today, a roughly fourfold increase from a couple of decades earlier. Christian denominations around the country are contending with massive defections. White Christian groups have experienced the most dramatic losses over the past decade. Today, white evangelical Protestants account for 15 percent of the adult population, down from nearly one-quarter a decade earlier. By contrast, Mormons have held steady at roughly 2 percent of the US population for the past several years. And perhaps as importantly, Mormons are far younger than members of white Christian traditions.

One of the interesting elements in the rise of world--not national--corporations is the question of "loyalty." For example, should a company that arises out of the free market system show loyalty to that system?
Peter Thiel, a billionaire investor and Facebook board member, spoke at something called the National Conservatism Conference--apparently a new conservative group--and part of his speech focused on "three questions that should be asked" of Google:

"Number one, how many foreign intelligence agencies have infiltrated your Manhattan Project for AI?

"Number two, does Google's senior management consider itself to have been thoroughly infiltrated by Chinese intelligence?

"Number three, is it because they consider themselves to be so thoroughly infiltrated that they have engaged in the seemingly treasonous decision to work with the Chinese military and not with the US military... because they are making the sort of bad, short-term rationalistic [decision] that if the technology doesn't go out the front door, it gets stolen out the backdoor anyway?"

The number of global earthquakes right now is more than 3 times above normal.


Civilization rests on the fact that we all benefit from knowledge that we do not possess as individuals. (channeling Hayek)

On this day in 1945, at 5:29:45 a.m., the Manhattan Project comes to an explosive end as the first atom bomb was successfully tested in Alamogordo, New Mexico.
(And Apollo 11 lifted off, the Romanovs were murdered, and JFK jr was killed.)


The Achilles Killer

Trump has been fighting in tweets with Rep. Omar, suggesting if she dislikes the country so much perhaps she should return to her Somalia home. He erroneously included all the high profile Progressives as immigrants. AOC fired back with a non sequitur: “On top of not accepting an America that elected us, you cannot accept that we don’t fear you, either." 
Just great. Incompetent but intense verbal swordplay at high government levels. Very reassuring. But there are some legitimate questions.

• 
  
• Some comparisons to current life from the '60s:
• 
  
• Life expectancy at birth in the U.S. was 70 years in 1965. Today it is 79.
• Real per capita GDP has gone from about $22,000 in 1965 to $58,000. It has grown by a factor of more than 2.5.
• The change in real per capita GDP shows up in numerous measures of physical well-being throughout the economy. In 1973 the size of an average new house was under 1600 square feet, and by 2015 it had reached about 2700 square feet.
• In 1965, legally-enforced Jim Crow was just coming to an end. Today, it is a distant memory.
• When first calculated about 1960, the federal “poverty rate” was 22%. Today (most recent Census data - 2017) it is said to be 12.3%. But even that figure is a manipulated consequence of the systematic exclusion of well more than $1 trillion of annual government “anti-poverty” distributions that did not exist 50 years ago. Without the systematic exclusion, the poverty rate today would be lucky to hit 2%. Back in the 60s, if you traveled anywhere in the South, the very real poverty of many of the people was right in your face. Today, you will be hard pressed to find anything comparable to the severe real poverty of that time.
• Subjectively, there are more:
• Wars are now fought by volunteers. There are computers and smart phones at prices that just about anyone can afford (today the government passes out free smart phones to the poor - not counted in the measure of “poverty” of course) and those electronics allow for previously unimagined business efficiency and entertainment; the tremendous increase in the availability of fresh food (in the 60s frozen vegetables were a great innovation); the huge decline in the cost of travel, particularly air travel; the decline in the relative cost of clothing; the universal availability of air conditioning; the ability to find any product or service quickly on the internet; and so on.

Which leads to a question: Why are these people so angry?