It’s funny, when I first heard about Silicon Valley Bank’s failure, my initial reaction was, “Good.” Then, when Signature Bank failed, I also thought to myself, “Good.” And, when it looked like Credit Suisse was about to fail, I said, “Good.” Of course, the Swiss arranged for Credit Suisse to be absorbed by UBS creating…
Mega Million was won by someone who bought a ticket in Maine. The prize was $1.35 billion. For me, at least, that’s an unfathomable amount of money. Can you imagine it? Clearly, no one needs that much money. The question is, would you want that much money? My answer to that question is no. And…
I, like many people, go grocery shopping weekly. For years, I’ve spent $60ish each week to feed myself, my kid, and supply my home. I went grocery shopping yesterday and it totaled over $100. I didn’t buy more than usual or anything unusual. It was my normal $60 trip except I had to pay an…
There’s this common occurrence where headlines have nothing whatsoever to do with the articles that they top. I’m fascinated by it. There are many ways to write badly but having a severely misleading title should be number one. Normally it is the case where the editor puts their own title on something, often without the…
My title probably sounds a little snarky and, to be fair, when I first asked it to a friend, I meant the snark. That’s no longer the case. I’ve been thinking about this for the past couple of weeks, and I’m now genuinely curious. For people who are hardcore, ardent socialism advocates, I want to…
Yesterday, I had to get a prescription filled. I went to the pharmacy, and they told me that I was no longer covered by my insurance. I was confused, but it wasn’t the woman at the pharmacy’s fault, so I went home to straighten things out. I called the insurance company. After navigating a long…
I know how this sounds, so please bear with me. There are many problems with the job “market” as it currently stands. All the power is on the side of employers (which is why I hesitate to call it a market in the first place). Favoritism and nepotism are rampant. The process rewards salesmanship over…
People on the internet, or at least the small cross-section of Twitter I see on a regular basis, seem pretty upset that President Joe Biden has reneged on his pledge to cancel at least some student debt. President Biden said publicly several times that he would “knock off” at least $10,000 in student debt, and…
A little while ago, I wrote an article for Phlexible Philosophy about money. The gist of the article was that money is a tool and if it doesn’t do its jobs as well as it could, maybe we should find a new tool. I briefly mentioned cryptocurrency in the article but didn’t really explore it….
Many people blame capitalism for many of the world’s ills. Most, if not all, of these problems have been present in non-capitalist societies, too. Do you ever wonder if capitalism is not actually to blame? Might these be political problems rather than economic? Do you think competitive nation states might be the actual cause of…
