Nationalism Vs. Patriotism, Shiffrin, Poverty Stats and the SSI

This month is Transgender Awareness Month at the VA.

"A free society is better today than a corrupt and totalitarian one. But one hundred years from now, the difference in human welfare and other relevant values will prove far more pronounced." This observation from Cowen is important: Like compounding interest, freedom's benefits grow exponentially with time.


Wise financial advice:
http://simplyrich.com/seven-steps-to-financial-peace-of-mind/

Orwell wrote that nationalism was ‘the worst enemy of peace.’ We are hearing now from the Europeans that nationalism--particularly American nationalism--is a great threat to us all. It is strange that this concern should be coming from the Europeans, the people who virtually invented nationalism. And it seems to imply a misunderstanding of it. Nationalism is sometimes benign, sometimes dangerous, but is always organizing, xenophobic and foreword looking. It has a motive. But what the Europeans usually complain of--at least in Americans--is closer to patriotism. Patriotism is pride in one's country and its heritage, respect for how your country was formed or has behaved. It has no opinion about others and is motiveless.
Perhaps this misunderstanding explains the terrible problems the Europeans have had with nationalism in the past. And, perhaps, the confusing view the Europeans have of America where the Americans are accused of both nationalism and disinterest in world affairs. And the European reaction to America reminds one of another important dichotomy: The distinction between jealousy and envy. Envy is "unhappiness over the success of others."

Swedish statistician and public health expert Hans Rosling began asking people this question in 2013: Has the percentage of the world population that lives in extreme poverty almost doubled, almost halved or stayed the same over the past 20 years?
Only 5% of 1,005 Americans got the right answer: Extreme poverty has been cut almost in half. A chimpanzee would do much better by picking an answer at random. So people are worse than ignorant: They believe they know many dire things about the world that are, in fact, untrue.

Mikaela Shiffrin capped the best year of her career by setting yet another milestone Saturday, overtaking one of her childhood idols to become the most successful female slalom skier in the 52-year history of the World Cup.

In the last race of 2018, the American added her 36th victory. Shiffrin previously shared the record with Austria's Marlies Raich, who, competing as Marlies Schild, won 35 times before retiring in 2014.

By winning Saturday, Shiffrin also became the first skier, male or female, to win 15 World Cup races in a single calendar year, moving one victory past men's overall champion Marcel Hirscher of Austria, who has won 14 times in 2018.

The Egyptians have really savage security.
Egyptian security forces have killed 40 "suspected militants" in three separate incidents in North Sinai and Giza, the Interior Ministry said on Saturday, a day after a bombing on a Vietnamese tourist bus in Giza killed four people.
The bombing, less than 4 km from the pyramids, on the outskirts of Cairo, is the first deadly attack against foreign tourists in Egypt for more than a year and comes as the tourism sector, a vital source of foreign currency, recovers from a sharp drop in visitor numbers since the country's 2011 uprising.