Back in the 1980’s there was a political scandal around US arms trafficking to Iran known as the Iran-Contra affair. There were a number of congressional hearings about this including repeated testimony from President Reagan replying “I can’t recall…” many times when questioned about the scandal. Years later when I was in high school, my…
Will You Still Love Me When I’m No Longer Young And Beautiful?
One of the main reasons my wife waited 10 years before marrying me was because, in her words, “I don’t want you to look back someday in the future and be stuck with an old woman”. She first told me this when I asked her to marry me when I was 21 and she was…
Passive Resistance
One of the concepts discussed in “Not Born Yesterday” was passive resistance. When an authoritarian regime that threatens violence, imprisonment and other harsh punishments for noncompliance, Mercier says oppressed people will superficially comply while passively resisting. Examples he provided included: I can think of many other examples like: I’m quite familiar with passive resistance since…
F*** You and Your Money
NPR and PBS are in Trump’s crosshairs to lose public funding from the federal government due to Trump’s whims, opinions and “retribution” for saying things he doesn’t like. Apparently, this isn’t a new threat. Conservatives have been lobbying to defund public TV and radio since the days when Reagan was president. This time, given Trump’s…
No Foolin’
I recently finished reading “Not Born Yesterday“, by Hugo Mercier. In this book, he makes the argument that people are not fooled, misled or deceived by propaganda, authority figures or cult leaders. Nor do any of these have a significant ability to change peoples’ minds. Through numerous examples ranging from Hitler’s propaganda during WWII to…
Border Crossing
When I was living on the road a few years ago I spent most of the time in Arizona and New Mexico camping on BLM and National Forest lands. Sometimes I was in areas close to the US/Mexico border. I recall one night driving around searching for the Walmart in Nogales AZ, when suddenly I…
“The Ballpark Owner Makes The Rules”
I read this line many years ago in a motivational self-help book written by a (self-professed) successful businessman. His point was that whoever was providing the money was in control of the final decisions – regardless of how important the players were, the employees were, personal feelings and “fairness”. His advice was that if you…
Earning The Rockies – Recommended Reading
I just finished reading the book, Earning The Rockies by Robert Kaplan. In it, he makes a road trip across the US from Maine to California stopping along the way in major metro areas, suburbs, small towns and rural communities. He listens to conversations from people along the way and intermingles these current day stories…
“Time Is More Valuable Than Money”
This is what all the rich people say who have plenty of money. After inheriting or earning their millions or billions there is a certain percentage of the uber-wealthy who decide they want to be famous. They write their memoir, run for political office, or run a PR campaign to position themselves as an “inspiration”…
Why I Don’t Worry About Economists’ Predictions
“Economists have accurately predicted 9 of the last 4 US economic recessions” is the punchline to a joke based on something economist Paul Samuelson said about the stock market in 1966. My formal economics education consists of one college level microeconomics course so clearly, I’m no expert. But, what I am able to do is…