There’s nothing they need, nothing they don’t own already, nothing they even want. So you buy them a solar-powered waving queen; a belly button brush; a silver-plated ice cream tub holder; a “hilarious” inflatable zimmer frame; a confection of plastic and electronics called Terry the Swearing Turtle; or – and somehow I find this significant – a Scratch Off World wall map.
They seem amusing on the first day of Christmas, daft on the second, embarrassing on the third. By the twelfth they’re in landfill. For thirty seconds of dubious entertainment, or a hedonic stimulus that lasts no longer than a nicotine hit, we commission the use of materials whose impacts will ramify for generations.
The son of a town manager who grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey, Volcker has a no-nonsense style. He was famous during his tenure at the Fed for the shiny suits he wore and inexpensive cigars he relished.
James Wolfensohn, the former World Bank president and a longtime friend who took on Volcker as a business partner after he left the Fed, said Volcker never sought out the trappings of power.
“In today’s world it sounds rare to see on a Friday night the chairman of the Federal Reserve carrying his bag himself in economy class, smoking the most foul cigars because they were cheap and he enjoyed them,” Wolfensohn said.
Ironically, when Volcker broke the 1970s inflation, he probably lead our country to the problem it faces these days -- too little inflation and too much cheap money and not enough return on cash investments.
Analysts say a growing number of New York’s financial elite believe that fleeing the city for other states with lower taxes and costs in order to protect their wealth is a total no-brainer — particularly since the 2019 UBS/PwC Billionaires Report found that the collective net worth of their peers globally has plunged heavily for the first time in years.
That may be true, but when you leave New York, you loose out on your financial connections and the people that make yourwealth. New York is expensive, but it's a popular choice for the elite, because you can't find the people in Manhattan Kansas that you can in Manhattan New York. Kansas might be a great place if you want to raise hogs and cattle, but probably not a great place to be in if your involved in financial business.
Just because your unpopular and called draconian causing all kinds of terrible pain in the short-run, doesn't mean you won't some day be proven to be right.
After another good jobs report, the spin doctors were out there talking about how bad the economy really is …. 🤔
The truth is any good economy is going to have it’s weaknesses and it’s problems. Poverty is always going to be a problem in certain parts of country — rural areas and those with more people of color. A good economy is helping to lift those boats, although there should be more targeted programs to help historically disadvantaged communities get the education and assistance they need to relocate to better jobs — if that’s what people want to do.
I don’t think it’s productive to dismiss the good economy because you don’t like the man in the White House, but we should also be realistic and recognize that not all gains are widely shared. We shouldn’t try to overheat an already roaring economy, but target those communities that need the most help now. We should also be contingent that a good economy won’t last forever and encourage people to prepare for the next downturn by savings and building more security into their lives.
As workers, we are obsessed with getting stuff done. No wonder there seems to be a bottomless well of advice, filled with evangelists, gurus, and thought leaders proferring hacks, tools, tricks, and secrets to help us pack more output into the waking hours of our workdays. Productivity software alone accounts for an $82 billion market, according to IBISWorld research.