Category: News

  • Gen X: Still a Bunch of Losers

    And I feel completely justified in saying that because I am Gen X, and we are a bunch of losers.

    On SNL this weekend, they had a sketch called “Millennial Millions,” and the clip is below…

    This is a subject matter that I have hit on before, which is that Baby Boomers are ruining everything for everyone, making life way more difficult than they had it.

    Anyway, the part that made me really sit up and laugh was at the 3:15 make when Kenan Thompson as the host laughs at a contestant, then adds, “I’m Gen X. I just sit on the sidelines and watch the world burn.” And there we have it; Nothing better encapsulates my generation than that statement.

    The first person that I know who threw all this shade at us was my friend, and artist Erin Orr, also Gen X, who made this point about three years ago. Her logic to us was more along the lines that Gen X should be moving into the political forefront, as we should be established in careers, earning real money, have families, and the first wave of us just hit 50. In 15 years, retirement will begin to set in. With all of this happening in our generational lives, where are we? Why aren’t we demanding to be on the political scene to have our concerns heard? It’s like we can’t shake our loser persona, and the rest of the world has just moved on to the next group.

    That’s why I’m not real surprised that this story happened, and Gen X got left out again.

  • Morality in Economics

    I read David Brooks today, and call me crazy, I think that this conservative guy is slowly becoming liberal. I will thank Trump for that, but more importantly, I welcome David to the party.

    I took the point of his piece, which was that America business needs to get its morality back in check. Think about employees, customers, and the communities they exist in, and not just the bottom line, shareholders, and stock value.

    Is this the first crack in the Conservative love of all things that came out of Milton Friedman’s mouth?

    I have held, and said many times, that Friedman’s approach and the way he viewed capitalism was destructive to all of us. I always felt that Friedman’s failure was rooted in the idea that an individual or corporation would “pay by the rules” in their quest for capital, and no one would cheat. The truth of the matter is that if there is money to be made, someone, inevitably will cheat, and someone gets hurt.

    Also, Friedman thought that governments should get out of the way and let companies do what they do. He thought all companies would want deregulation, but what he missed was that companies want regulation on everyone else, just not them. That’s why there is a weird revolving door with CEOs and executives getting named as heads of regulation organizations. (FCC, FDA, ect…)

    In a philosophical sense, I believe that all economics are based in emotions and not in logic. Economies are not math, it is not a science; it is completely man made, and as such, will behave illogically often to meet its desired ends. To put a morality on top of capitalism is a neat idea, and to do that, you need some agreed upon regulations.

    Welcome to the party, David.

  • Cohen to Testify for Congress; Trump Will Try to Divert

    According to The New York Times, Michael Cohen will now testify publicly for about his work for Trump on February 7th for the House Oversight and Reform Committee. This could be huge. This could be Watergate or Iran/Contra huge. This could impact Trump’s ability to do his job, or open up more investigations, or start an honest and serious debate about impeachment.

    Or…

    And this is my predication…

    The day before, day of, or day after, Trump is going to do something really crazy to try and divert attention from Cohen.

    He has done it before…

    Remember how he tweeted about Obama wiretapped him to make everyone forget about the start of the Russia investigation?

    Remember how he tweeted about NFL player’s protests to make everyone forget about the failure to repeal Obamacare?

    The stock market started to fall, and then he tweeted that the military was leaving Syria. Anyone remember that one?

    This is what Trump does, and it will happen again. What I would hope to see is that the media won’t take the bait. That whatever created controversy that Trump comes up with won’t get plastered all across the airwaves.

    I keep thinking that news editors and produces will see this pattern of sham, and then choose not to go down the rabbit hole of Trump nonsense.

    I keep thinking people are smarter than this…