Starting right now at NBAA in Orlando… “Climate Risks & Business Aviation” taught by a friend from Maskachusetts (an aviation lender): Join us for an introduction, categorization and explanation of the climate risks facing business aviation. We’ll also include predictions and es … | Continue reading
Happy Tax Day if you filed for an extension. What’s different this year? Inflation means that ordinary schlubs can pay tax rates that were sold as applying only to the elite. The Obamacare “Net Investment Income Tax” of 3.8 percent on top of ordinary income and capital gains tax … | Continue reading
“Bay Area exodus: Median income drops as wealthy residents move out” (SiliconValley.com): New census data is shining more light on the Bay Area’s pandemic exodus: The region saw the largest drop in median income of any big U.S. metro area as wealthy people moved away — and curre … | Continue reading
In 2017, I purchased a single-serve coffee maker for $29.88: This machine has brewed its last cup. How much is the new one? The $42.39 price is 42 percent inflation relative to the $29.88 price paid in 2017. What does the official government site say? It should cost $35.88 … | Continue reading
There has been a lot of drama in the currency and bond markets regarding the new UK government’s economic policy, which sounds like it is along the lines of what the U.S. did in the 1980s. President Ronald Reagan proposed shrinking government with spending cuts so that tax cuts c … | Continue reading
I hope that everyone had a good Latinx Heritage Month (September 15-October 15 because the Mayan calendar is used?). The Democrats seem to have rebranded themselves the “Abortion Care for Pregnant People Seeking Reproductive Health Care Party”. We flipped on the TV after school l … | Continue reading
Atlantic is the coronapanic gift that keeps on giving. The laptop class migrates from chronic Lyme to Long COVID highlights our summer gift from this magazine. “Medium COVID Could Be the Most Dangerous COVID” (October 11, by Dr. Karen) is our fall gift. I am still afraid of catc … | Continue reading
It has been about 1.5 years since “Facebook lifts ban on posts claiming Covid-19 was man-made” (Guardian, May 27, 2021): Facebook has lifted a ban on posts claiming Covid-19 was man-made, following a resurgence of interest in the “lab leak” theory of the disease’s onset.The soci … | Continue reading
Earlier here I wondered Could our epic deficits drive inflation no matter how high the Fed raises rates? (the answer is “yes” according to one of the smartest economists in the world: Economist answers my question about high interest rates and high deficits). Regarding the latest … | Continue reading
Here in Paris, I met a guy who works in real estate development in Los Angeles. Assuming that you’ve already got the land, what does it cost to build a McMansion-grade house? “$500 per square foot,” he responded. How about an apartment building for the middle class? “Closer to $4 … | Continue reading
“Hey Florida, your energy bills to rise if regulators approve this plan” (Tampa Bay Times, November 2019): Both decisions could collectively cost customers more than $3 billion in the next three years and are being closely watched… The first issue regulators will decide is a rul … | Continue reading
We walked to the Eiffel Tower yesterday evening. At the edge of the park surrounding the Tower, a scene was playing out. A Black man was on the ground, in George Floyd position, while two white guys were handcuffing and generally abusing him. He was pleading for mercy in Frenc … | Continue reading
Airliners and Hurricane Ian at 6 pm on Wednesday, September 28. Note Spirit (NKS517) at about 32,700′ (^32700) above the ground flying straight over the hurricane itself: How ugly did it get on the ground? Here’s the worst-looking METAR that I found from the big airport in For … | Continue reading
Let’s see how the War on Cancer that Richard Nixon started is going… “In gold-standard trial, invitation to colonoscopy reduced cancer incidence but not death” (STAT): For decades, gastroenterologists put colonoscopies on a pedestal. If everyone would get the screening just once … | Continue reading
Who wants to meet at the big business aviation conference (NBAA) in Orlando that runs October 18-22? This is the place to order your Boeing Business Jet. Photo from 2017: I had some trouble registering this year due to the incomplete list of available pronouns: I’m excited … | Continue reading
I’m back in our AirBnB in Paris where we live like the guys in La Boheme if they had 500 Mbit symmetric fiber Internet. No longer limited to 0.5 GB of mobile data per day at $10 (the Verizon Travel Pass; Google Maps by itself can consume close to this quota), it is time to check … | Continue reading
Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day, everyone! I hope that you’re celebrating with a new land acknowledgment. Any time that we think about Native Americans we can also think about immigration, a process that certainly did not in any way replace Native Americans on what is today U.S. t … | Continue reading
Happy National Work and Family Month. Nobody is more accomplished at working and having a family than Tom Brady, right? Let’s consider “Why Gisele Bündchen is right to ‘quiet quit’ her marriage to Tom Brady” (Journal of Venator Bidenus): Gisele Bündchen, wife of legendary quarte … | Continue reading
One of the poignant aspects of last week’s trip to London (today was the Chunnel move to Paris) was that flowers and letters left in memory of Queen Elizabeth II had faded and were being cleaned up. Here are some scenes from Green Park, next to Buckingham Palace: At … | Continue reading
We finally moved into a house with enough counter space to experiment with a pressure cooker (Ninja brand that is a ripoff of the popular Instant Pot). Most of the recipes that I have tried called for a “quick release” of the pressure. If you don’t do this, it takes perhaps 30 mi … | Continue reading
Joe Biden said he wanted humans to stop burning oil (“climate change poses an existential threat… Getting to a 100% clean energy economy is not only an obligation, it’s an opportunity.” (joebiden.com)). Our Arab brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters running OPEC graciously obli … | Continue reading
Today is the anniversary of the Royal Proclamation of 1763, in which King George III told the white settlers in the colonies that they couldn’t steal any more land from the Native Americans. Our Founding Fathers owned a lot of land to the west of the Proclamation Line and, theref … | Continue reading
Phantom of the Opera Les Mis, Mamma Mia!, the Lion King, and Wicked were sold out, so I treated myself to the second night of a revival of Good, a 1981 play commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The new production economizes on the number of actors to an impressive yet a … | Continue reading
I hope that everyone has been having a good LGBT History Month so far. Here’s a tale from a medical student learning Science. There may be a correlation between concern regarding COVID-19 and concern regarding gender ID: First 30 minutes in the office:It was by-far the wokest … | Continue reading
From a UCLA professor: 300 student mandatory in-person lecture 2x week starts Thurs. I tried to go hybrid. Not allowed. Students aren’t wearing masks anymore. This is such a f’d reality. I’m the sole care provider for my child. I have zero backup. So I’m giving extra credit to … | Continue reading
“Governor DeSantis Calls on Lee County Electric Cooperative to Accept Additional Mutual Aid to Expedite Power Restoration” (Saturday): At this time, Florida Power and Light (FPL) has restored power to more than 45% of their accounts in Lee County, while LCEC has only restored po … | Continue reading
Happy Dental Hygiene Month. I hope that every reader has bought him/her/zir/theirself a new toothbrush head to celebrate. This reminds me to relate a story in the Department of Philip is Always Wrong. I conjectured that Americans’ dental health would have improved during the loc … | Continue reading
Most of my friends are from the Northeast or California. As such, they’ve been near the maximum panic level for coronapanic since March 2020. Knowing that we’d moved to southeast Florida, these folks contacted us to make sure that a hurricane in southwest Florida hadn’t destroyed … | Continue reading
Today is the 60th anniversary of the Mercury 8 mission, which orbited the Earth six times while photos were made with a Hasselblad camera. A good time to remind iPhone owners what a camera used to look like! From the Hasselblad Manual by Wildi: Loading the film is as simple as … | Continue reading
If you want to go to SW Florida and volunteer with the recovery efforts, you may be pleased to learn that the Naples airport reopened yesterday (only from 7 am to 7:30 pm due to damage sustained by lighting). The airport reopened with PPR on Friday, just two days after Hurricane … | Continue reading
It’s National Arts and Humanities Month. Hunter Biden is probably the world’s most successful artist as measured by the time between when he started to paint and when the first painting sold for a least $500,000 (Guardian). What’s his competition? “Three Years Ago, Her Art Sold f … | Continue reading
If you’re among the shrinking minority of Americans who pay Federal income taxes, pat yourself on the back because you’ve already helped with Hurricane Ian relief. You’re one of the folks who funds the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA; $28.7 billion budget for FY 2020). … | Continue reading
1.5 years ago: Short Snowflake? Looking at SNOW versus the S&P 500 over that period: SNOW is down nearly 30 percent while the S&P 500, thanks to Joe Biden’s careful stewardship of the U.S. economy, is down 10 percent (but actually that 10 percent over 1.5 years is more like 25 … | Continue reading
From the lieutenant governor on Wednesday night: Florida is staged and ready with: ⁃ 42,000 linemen⁃ 5,000 Florida Guardsmen⁃ 5 USAR teams – 1,200 DOT personnel ⁃ 250 aircraft and more than 1600 high water vehicles and 300 boats. Floridians need to take proper precautions as we … | Continue reading
I got a letter from the Department of Revenue back in Maskachusetts. They were upset that I failed to report $12,600 in coronapanic unemployment benefits received in 2020. As I had not filed for unemployment nor received $12,600, this came as a shock. The claim did not start unti … | Continue reading
Beloved European and stubbornly non-European readers: I arrive in London (staying near St. James Park underground and Westminster Abbey) on Tuesday, October 4 (Airbus A380 from MIA!). On October 8, it will be time to move to Paris via the tunnel train. I will be there in the 7th … | Continue reading
A reader comment on What would it cost to retreat from Tampa to Orlando as Hurricane Ian appraoches?: It’s amusing to watch the media’s approach to the hurricane and Ron DeSantis. They pretty much have to put him on TV, discussing plans to evacuate, etc. But the contrast with th … | Continue reading
Today is the beginning of the big GDP statistics update from the BEA: At the end of September, BEA will update five years of U.S. gross domestic product and related statistics, as well as GDP statistics for industries and for each state. Maybe we’ll get some insight into how ba … | Continue reading
Practicalities of evacuation from Florida’s west coast considered the possibilities open to my friend’s dad in Fort Myers. He’s in his 80s and elected to stay home. My memory of his neighborhood is that it is just across the street from a neighborhood of houses with docks (i.e., … | Continue reading
“Some don’t evacuate, despite repeated hurricane warnings, because they can’t” (state-sponsored NPR): Depending on a family’s financial situation, evacuating away from a storm can be costly.“Many modest- to low-income households simply don’t have the cash or credit,” said Joshua … | Continue reading
Today is my birthday and also the day that Hurricane Ian arrives on Florida’s west coast. Now that we’re quasi-coastal Floridians, what I want as a present is a machine that can stop hurricanes. An Ivy League graduate recently suggested this idea. She consumes the New York Times … | Continue reading
Hurricane Ian is now forecast to slam straight into Fort Myers, Florida. A friend’s dad is in one of the low-lying surge-vulnerable areas covered by a “mandatory evacuation order,” but he’s refusing to leave. Will the National Guard pull him out? “There’s evacuation orders in … | Continue reading
Hurricane Ian is forecast to destroy Tampa, Florida beginning tomorrow. “Hurricane Ian strengthens to Category 2 storm and could be ‘something that we haven’t seen in our lifetime,’ Tampa forecaster says” (CNN). “Hurricane Ian Targets Florida, Threatens Tampa Bay With First Direc … | Continue reading
The Artemis rocket was supposed to be launched right now (3rd attempt), but was once again subjected to abortion care. What’s the principal reason given for the abortion care? “to protect our employees”: Thanks to our partners at @NOAA, @SpaceForceDoD, & @NHC_Atlantic and their … | Continue reading
“The Future Is Italy, and It’s Bleak” (NYT, July 22, 2022): Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party … could open the way for the Brothers of Italy to become the first far-right party to lead a major eurozone economy. For Europe and the country, it wou … | Continue reading
The Congressional Budget Office has a recent report forecasting U.S. population for the next 30 years: The Demographic Outlook: 2022 to 2052 (cbo.gov). The authors say that U.S. population will continue to grow, all due to immigration: Since immigrants have a higher birth rat … | Continue reading
Giorgia Meloni’s life, in many respects, traces the arc of progress for women in Italian society. Her mother, Anna Paratore, was born in 1952, just 7 years after women in Italy gained the right to vote in national elections. It has taken a long, long time for the promise of wo … | Continue reading
“Migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard have filed a lawsuit against Gov. DeSantis” (state-sponsored NPR, 9/20): A civil rights law firm filed a federal class action lawsuit on Tuesday against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and others for transporting around 50 immigrants from San Anton … | Continue reading