Saturday, March 25, 2023
a rallying cry.........................
A dismissive Henry Clay once described the Democratic Party to a small group of Louisville notables as "the Jackson party . . . a mere personal party." And certainly as the 1832 presidential election approached, the coalition, entering only its second national contest, lacked Jackson's prestige and popularity. What is more, the president seemed to will even his unfolding opposition into existence. The National Republicans attacked the Indian Removal Act and Bank veto while stressing the emanating danger of executive usurpation, thus making Jackon himself the main campaign issue. Certainly no single individual did more to provide a rallying cry for enemies and allies alike during this pregnant period of partisan formation.
-David S. Brown, The First Populist: The Defiant Life of Andrew Jackson
Distinctions...................
It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society—the farmers, mechanics, and laborers—who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government. There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act before me there seems to be a wide and unnecessary departure from these just principles.
-Andrew Jackson, from his Bank Veto message
Eight thoughts about risk..............
First, risk is highest when everything seems perfect.
Second, the conditions that create prosperous outcomes often plant the seeds of their own unwindings.
Third, risk happens fast.
Fourth, boring is often a feature, not a flaw. Leaving money on the table isn’t a bad thing if it provides a margin for error.
Fifth, there is never one single catalyst to any existential risk.
Sixth, the biggest risks, by their very nature, can’t be forecasted.
Seventh, when you have already achieved “success,” no terminal tail risk is worth it, regardless of the probability.
Eighth, the biggest risks always look obvious in hindsight, yet we never catch them beforehand.
Going down the rabbit hole..............
The purpose of technology is to increase the potential for human happiness.
In some sense, “What is technology for?” is an impossible question to answer. Each company or person creates or adopts each very specific technology for a very specific reason – there’s always a Job to Be Done – so the question is impractically grandiose. Pondering the ultimate purpose of technology is like pondering the meaning of life.
Friday, March 24, 2023
Something old and something new...............
Ugliness sold as beauty; lies sold as truth; discrimination sold as diversity. Un-ideas.
The Future Lawyer.................
........................offers some advice:
Money is way down on the list of things that will make you happy. Freedom of choice is way up at the top of the list. Act accordingly.
Thursday, March 23, 2023
becoming friends with the eminent dead.....
I am a biography nut myself. And I think when you're trying to teach the great concepts that work, it helps to tie them into the lives and personalities of the people who developed them. I think you learn economics better if you make Adam Smith your friend. That sounds funny, making friends among "the eminent dead," but if you go through life making friends with the eminent dead who had the right ideas, I think it will work better for you in life and work better in education. It's way better than just giving the basic concepts.
Wednesday, March 22, 2023
Go Bucks...................!
Whether it’s the two biggest capital investment announcements in Ohio history in 2022 or the very real statewide manufacturing resurgence, Ohio is on a trajectory for growth and opportunity which most Ohioans haven’t seen in our lifetimes. Governor Mike DeWine is right to say, “It’s Ohio’s time.”
-Rick Platt, as excerpted from here
Connections.......................
People who are more connected to family, to friends, and to community, are happier and physically healthier than people who are less well connected. People who are more isolated than they want to be find their health declining sooner than people who feel connected to others. Lonely people also live shorter lives.
The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest (mentally and physically) at age 80.
-as culled from here
About fear................
Controlling your behavior amid uncertainty can be hard enough. Controlling your reactions to other people’s behavior is way harder. Fear is more contagious than any virus, and can instantly push people to react in ways that would have seemed unthinkable a moment prior. . . .
The higher the stakes, the more thoughtful you need to be about those who surround you.
-Morgan Housel, from here
Tuesday, March 21, 2023
In praise of capitalism....................
Far from robbing anybody of surplus value, Capitalism is like a benevolent ancestor who, instead of consuming all the port that he could get – as some ancestors did – laid down an enormous cellar of it for the use of future generations. And every one who is now alive in this country, and millions abroad likewise, are now able to help themselves to bottles of the grand old vintage then laid down and now ready for us, crusted, fruity, full of ripe flavour and rich bouquet. For none of us could have been so well off, and many of us could not have been born at all, if Capitalism had not done this deed, and done it judiciously and well.
–Hartley Withers, The Case for Capitalism, 1920 p239.
Don't care much about the tech industry.....
................................................but this is serious.
Monday, March 20, 2023
On de-surplussing...............
Their own life force spent in the pursuit of what they believed was important, they now have the means to travel and remember.
-culled from this Joel Hirst post on the coming projected demographic collapse
Trust........................
Trust does not emerge simply because a seller made a rational case why the customer should buy a product or service, or because an executive promises change. Trust is not a checklist. Fulfilling all your responsibilities does not create trust. Trust is a feeling, not a rational experience. We trust some people and companies even when things go wrong, and we don't trust others even though everything might have gone exactly as it should have. A completed checklist does not guarantee trust. Trust begins to emerge when we have a sense that another person or organization is driven by things other than their own gain.
-Simon Sinek, Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action
Work.............................
I know I would like to avoid work. I know that if I could do what I love, then I would never have to work a day in my life. But there's a problem. Even in my pimpled teenage obnoxiousness I know that this is unlikely if I'm not great at something. . . .
I called the song "Out of Control" because it dawned on me—and Fyodor Dostoyevsky might have had a hand in this—that we humans have little or no influence on the two most important moments of our life. Being born and dying. That felt like the right kind of fuck-you to the universe that a great punk rock song requires.
-Bono, two excerpts from Chapter 2 in Surrender: 40 songs, one story
Knowledge.........
The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.
-attributed to Carl Sagan
Sunday, March 19, 2023
Calm.................................
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| Claude Monet 1883 Port d'Aval, Rough Sea |
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| Claude Monet 1883 The Manneport, Cliff at Étretat |
“If the ocean can calm itself, so can you. We are both salt water mixed with air”
True this............................
Having watched numerous extinction-level events come and go over the years, I’ve observed a few familiar patterns. The common thread, ignoring the prophets of doom, never failed.
Good point.......................
Income is obviously different than wealth. It doesn’t matter how much money you make, if you don’t save any of it, you’re not really wealthy.
As we have said before, it's not how much you make, it's what you do with what you make that counts.
Status......................
The interesting question isn’t whether someone has status. It’s whether they’re gutsy enough to demonstrate it by making things better for others.
Wisdom....................
..........................and other good stuff may be found here on a regular basis.
Useful.................
As we do before every show, we pray.
Sometimes it can feel as if we're strangers, praying to find the intimacy of a band that could be useful to our audience this evening. Useful? To music. To some higher purpose. In some strangely familiar way we are changed. We begin our prayers as comrades; we end them as friends finding a different image of ourselves, as well as the audience we're about to meet, who will change us again.
To be useful is a curious prayer. Unromantic. A little dull even. but it's at the heart of who we are and why we're still here as a band. Men who met as boys. Men who have broken the promise that's at the very heart of rock 'n' roll, which is that you can have the world but in return the world will have you. You can have your messiah complex, but you must die on a cross aged thirty-three, or everyone has the right to ask for their money back. We've turned them down so far.
We are men who bear some scar tissue from our various struggles with the world but whose eyes are remarkably clear considering the vicissitudes and surreality of a life playing stadiums for thirty-five years.
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