“The cost of one megabyte of hard drive memory has fallen from approximately $1 million in 1967 to 2 cents today,” writes Booth. We can easily imagine what that means for the cool stuff that will be on our smartphones. What I can’t fathom is what cheaper computing power will do for the price of a can of beans.
This may be overblown. BYU-Idaho administrators might be clairvoyant and issuing warnings just to head off any bright ideas students might have to raise a little money. WRCBtv reports, “Mimi Taylor, spokeswoman for Eastern Idaho Public Health, told CNN that she believed the school put out the statement as a preemptive measure intended to keep students from getting any ideas.”
Benoit points out that the banks used a bit of financial hocus pocus to improve their earnings. “The results were boosted because the banks didn’t have to put aside as much money to cover future loan losses,”
Masks of all shapes and sizes are everywhere. But now, just in time for halloween, a company called 3wishes, the very morning after a fly landed and stayed on VP Mike Pence’s grey carefully coiffed hair during last night’s Vice Presidential debate has created the Debate Fly Wig. T
While speculators in London’s Exchange Alley furiously bid up the price of South Sea Company shares, word came that two dock workers unloading wool were overcome by dizziness.
Bob Woodward takes his second bite from the Trump apple, with “Rage.” Woodward has completed the interview circuit with his biggest prop being Trump on tape. Trump cooperated and the esteemed author had the president saying what he knew and when he knew it: about the coronavirus, of course.
“The trend could put more Americans on a path to greater wealth and financial security,” Krantz writes, presumably with a straight face. “But it remains to be seen if the beginning investors will stick around for the long haul — or if they'll have the investing skills to avoid losses when stocks take a tumble.”
“Industrial civilization,” Sale writes, “in other words, is an inherently self-destructive system with limits beyond which it cannot survive, and utterly consumes itself like the self-burning tree of Gambia discovered by Mungo Park.”
Tom Blanchard, realtor and president of trade association Las Vegas Realtors, describes the Las Vegas housing market as being “on fire.” Mr. Segall reports, “All told, the market has gained speed as buyers snap up homes from builders and on the resale market, with sellers fetching multiple bids.” Blanchard says simply, “It’s craziness.”
What has cloaked the recession is government largesse in the form of the added $600 to weekly unemployment claims. While the juice from that lemon ran dry August 1st, it will be replaced by a $300 or $400 weekly bump once Treasury Secretary Mnunchin gets around to cutting the checks.
Right or wrong, the president, in this case, knows of what he tweets. Go to any city council meeting when a developer attempts to rezone property for high-density zoning and angry neighbors appear in mass, organized and vocal, not an apron in sight.
For decades, buying a house was the American thing to do. Houses always go up in value, it was claimed. Every month’s payment meant some money was going into a sort of savings. Buy as much house as you can afford was the advice, the bigger the house the bigger the gain.
Ah yes, another new normal. “Speculation in the capitalist system performs a function which must be performed in any economic system however organized: it provides for the adjustment of supply and demand over time and space,” wrote Ludwig von Mises in his book “Socialism.”
One of my economics professors once told the class, “Freedom is a liability for those who can’t govern themselves,” which means this argument will be thrust into the courts. The rights infringement argument is heading towards, first, statute law, and second, possibly, into a common law brick wall.
Her story is pure Cinderella in terms of table success, making her book compelling from start to finish. But, “Bluff” is not just a telling of “bad beats,” “bluffs,” and “big pots.” Konnikova weaves plenty of psychology and behavioral economics into her narrative.
Despite happy talk here and there, Las Vegas, with its dependence on frequent fliers and conventioneers, is in a bad way. During an earnings call for Las Vegas Sands, owners of The Venetian and Palazzo on the Las Vegas Strip, Sands President Rob Goldstein said, “We’re in a world of hurt here in terms of Vegas.”
So while Trump’s true believers require no convincing as to the President’s assertion that Covid-19 will magically go away, his administration is taking control of the information. “The Trump administration ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all COVID-19 patient information to a central database in Washington,” reports USA Today.
The Fed is not going to hit the brakes, but could the social mood be changing. The nightly news looks like 1968, could markets follow? In ‘68 it was the Hong Kong flu that killed 70,000 while the stock market peaked. The Vietnam War accelerated, the National Guard killed students at Kent State, the Weather Underground formed, and the Beatles broke up. The stock market then headed down to a 1970 bottom.
In other words, forget the mask, stay home. Isolation is the only solution. But, after a couple of months of being cooped up at home, many Americans can’t handle it. One wonders why? The answer lies in Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s groundbreaking “Democracy The God That Failed.”
The constant argument about Covid shutdowns, social distancing and other inconveniences is the government's ham-handed response is killing “the economy.” This brings to mind Margaret Thatcher’s famous quip, “There is no such thing as society,” which, although long since underground, she is still criticized for. “There are only the individuals, families, groups, associations and organizations that make it up,” writes economist William Watson to finish her thought. Likewise, he explains, “there is no such thing as ‘the economy’. There are only the people, groups, associations, etc. that make it up.”
