Trump vs Sanders Would Be Great News For America

You’d never guess that a Donald Trump vs. Bernie Sanders match up would be good for the country if you listen to the media. The media elites for each side say their respective candidates would be unelectable. The Republican leaning press claims Trump is too racist, xenophobic, and just plain too obnoxious to win the…

New York Values Aren’t America’s (Politicians) Values

It wasn’t Ted Cruz who said, “Who needs Manhattan when we can get the electoral votes of eleven Southern states?”; Kevin Phillips a Richard Nixon’s campaign strategist said it. Ted Cruz is just the latest politician to complain about New York values not being his. They are right, New York values of hard work (working…

The Ironic Advice of a Billionaire

“How many yachts can you water-ski behind? How much is enough, huh?” Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen), Wall Street (1987) The Powerball lottery prize is up over $1,400,000,000 this week. If you win and take the lump sum, which in my opinion you should, you would have about $651 million left after tax. Needless to say…

Scary Tax Stories From Beyond the Grave

[I]n this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. Benjamin Franklin Letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy (13 November 1789); reported in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919) Yesterday when I wrote about income inequality it may have seemed like I implied the solution to the problem would only come when people…

The Problem with No Face

The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, and wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, 1096.a5 As election day approaches it’s been easy to see some of the ugly problems facing the United States…

The Illusionary Value of Gold

Poor is the man who can boast of nothing more that gold.  -William Scott Downey, Proverbs Ch 1, #11 (1858) In the article, The Shared Delusion of Money, I discussed some of the delusions surrounding the “value” of money. The other day I overheard someone talking about how they wanted gold and diamonds for the…

The Shared Delusion of Money

The lack of money is the root of all evil. -MARK TWAIN, Mark Twain’s Notebook I was explaining Bitcoin in an econ class the other day, and that drove home an idea that I’ve been thinking about for a while. That is the value of our money is based on a shared delusion. The delusion…

All That Lives Must Die

Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity. Hamlet,  Act I, scene 2 Death. Americans in the last part of the 20th century feared it more than anything (and we Americans are a very scared group of people). We fight it and hide from it and send all thoughts…

The Spiritual Poverty of the Rich

The 1% are in the news, and everywhere you turn people are talking about them (mostly themselves talking about themselves). The greed and selfishness they exhibit is staggering and disheartening: The latest is the idea that rich should have more say in government than the poor, put forth by a crazed rich white dude, “You…