worthwhile...............

 

A person was like a city.  You couldn't let a few less desirable parts put you off the whole.  There may be bits you don't like, a few dodgy side streets and suburbs, but the good stuff makes it worthwhile.

-Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

thanks David

A dozen life lessons.............

 

.........................inspired by Ruth Alder Schnee:

6. Pay attention and seek beauty. As Adler Schnee reminds us, “We all make our own environment in which we are comfortable, and beauty is a great part of it.” She also emphasized that finding beauty is much easier than many of us have been led to believe. “You just have to look at things. Everything is designed. My biggest criticism of American education is the schools don’t teach children to look and to see things, because design is all around us. You just have to go outside and look.” 

The true pleasure..............................

 

............................of re-reading favorite books.

Don't always read what's on Vox...........

 

.........but sometimes their stuff is pretty good.  To wit:

But in both cases, the president and his allies in Congress made a conscious choice, for good or ill. What stands out about Biden is the degree to which he simply refused to choose at all.

Unorganized Hancock's.............................

 

......................................gift of Christmas music.

Luxury..........................

 

    via

A father writes to a son.................

 You might think you want an expensive car, a fancy watch, and a huge house. But I’m telling you, you don’t. What you want is respect and admiration from other people, and you think having expensive stuff will bring it. It almost never does – especially from the people you want to respect and admire you.

-Morgan Housel

While wandering through the Intertunnel....

 ..............a few interesting things were found:

The rule, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” creates incentives to demonstrate minimum ability and maximum need. Poverty is the inevitable result.

-via Cafe Hayek

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Unprecedented actions on the scale that we experienced in 2020-2022 will bring unexpected results in 2023.  So, while we never want to ignore a number like the January jobs report, we have to question how much is signal and how much is noise.

The economy is still absorbing the money printed during the pandemic.  Inflation has not been eradicated, the Fed is highly unlikely to loosen policy anytime soon, and earnings are likely to fall as all the stimulus wears off.  That’s not a recipe for a simple forecast or a soft landing.  Like the Super Bowl, until the game is played no one knows exactly what will happen.  Count us less bullish than conventional wisdom.

-via Brian Wesbury

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You learn something new every day; as part of the settlement to the Spanish-American War - Spain agreed to sell the US the Philippines for $20 million. Andrew Carnegie, the richest man in the world at the time, offered to reimburse the government $20 million if they would give the Philippines their freedom instead of making it a US Protectorate. The government rejected his kind offer...

-via and via

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I don't care which party is in power, the State of the Union address has become an embarrassment.  It should be abandoned.

-via the Execupundit

Checking in .........................

....................................with Jim Nantz. 

 For an interesting exposition on "goal minded lifestyles" make sure you listen a few moments after the 3:00 minute mark as Jim Nantz chats with Dave Lapham.

Some thoughts...........................

 ..............................on the good stuff.

The trifecta........................

 

Check in with Kevin Kelly................

• Over the long term, the future is decided by optimists. To be an optimist you don’t have to ignore all the many problems we create; you just have to imagine improving our capacity to solve problems.

Kevin Kelly, from this instructive list of 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

thanks Chris

I haven't been blogging....................

........................much here of late, mostly because I've stayed away from the computer.  It seems like a logical conclusion that paying to much attention to what passes for news these days does not enhance one's mental well-being.   However, it is a given that checking in regularly with these fine people does enhance one's mental well-being.   Stuff like this for instance:

 I'm a glutton for punishment but I would love to watch a Jeopardy! showdown between CNN's Jim Acosta and Wolf Blitzer. I'd put the combined over/under for correct answers for the entire show at 5. I'd also bet that neither would qualify for Final Jeopardy because they would both be well into negative numbers...

Like Danny used to say, "he cracks my head up."

In the background.................

Top of the Stax:  Twenty Greatest Hits

Excellence personified.....................

One of main benefits of blogging is just being able to hang around his neighborhood and check out those who influence him.   It will make you a better human being.

Just another reason.....................

..............why it makes sense to check in with Farnam Street:

Don’t get me wrong. Reasoned skepticism and disagreement are essential to progress and democracy. The problem is that most of what’s happening isn’t reasoned skepticism. It’s the adult equivalent of a two-year-old throwing a tantrum.

Rules of Life..........................

...........and more good stuff from the ever-generous Nicholas Bate:

St. Paul and The Broken Bones.........?

.............................................................Jet Boy sure can pick 'em.

I really like Ben Carlson...............

....If you aren't reading his blog, well, feel free to start now.   Here is a for instance of his common sensical thinking:

5. There isn’t just one reason. Narratives about what caused the market correction can be fun to argue about but there’s never just one reason for something like this. The president or the Fed or the tariffs or algorithmic trading strategies or the month of December or Taylor Swift’s deafening silence on the trade war didn’t cause this downturn.

Markets are made up of millions of investors, all with different goals, objectives, time horizons, risk profiles, and temperaments. No one person or office or investment strategy can control these millions of moving parts.

The poet Frank Bidart once wrote, “Insanity is the insistence of meaning.” He may have been talking about the movements of the stock market.

Recommended.................

      via