RealMarkDeneen

I imagined "Web3" as virtual consumption replacing physical consumption which is approaching the brick wall of Doomed Earth. Clearly, we can't continue forever consuming a finite resource - - enter the MetaVerse - - where you consume imaginary goods with imaginary crypto that you exchanged for your real dollars. Once the world is accustomed to consuming insanely expensive entertainments - like baseball and football** - it will be a short leap over to consuming even more wildly expensive Virtual Cruises to Virtual Locations, eating Virtual gourmet meals, prepared by virtual chefs, all invented by cheesy programmers. ** How is it possible that the economic realm was stretched, distorted and tortured out of shape to such an absurd level that men are paid $40M/year to play a game of baseball for 6 months of the year?

In the beginning.... The dreamers waxed excitedly about building global communities, democratization of everything, and opening up the world to all voices. And then hucksters and pirates moved in to use it for mass behavior modification and training the population to consume more. Then the reality of what "community" actually means set in, and the new owners didn't like it at all. Real "communities" are not like Disney fantasy villages, they are far more messy. There are lots of kinds and styles of interaction and relationships - good and bad. There are lots of noisy disagreements, bar stool conversations, ideological bantering, and too many variables to control. The "town square" no longer fit neatly into establishment values. Enter the various "clamp downs" "cram downs" "cancellations" and my favorite euphemism - "de-platforming." All ownership eyes turned to the idea of Disneyfication of every property and every messy town square. Consider what YouTube has become from what it once was. Is the Internet worth saving just so people can shop in their PJ's at 3:00 a.m., and hear "news of the establishment pied-pipers?" Or should it just die off like what is happening to broadcast TV?

The last 50 years of FED policy have resulted in: the US's Gini Coefficient keeps rising, housing shortages are always trending worse, the economic middle class is disappearing, and aggregate debt keeps rising. Does anyone ever ask, "Are we using the right tools to manage the economy?" Even in the very best case, the FED's standard policy objective of "maintaining 2% inflation" is deadening productivity gains which run somewhat in the 2% range. This is one reason the GINI continually creeps northward, and frank poverty (not formulaic poverty) is rising. Consider all the blather about "smart tools" and "smart regulation" it's a wonder we still use the equivelent of a hammer and chisel for brain surgery when it comes to economic policy. The Red Knob turns the money printer up and down, the Yellow Knob turns the Interest Rate up and down. That's it! That's what the FED Chair has to play with - two knobs to run the world's largest economy. Is it any wonder that putting ten top economists in a room will yield ten different economic futures? Well, it's not all bad. The FED has done an outstanding and commendable job for those with 12-figure accumulations.

@Audible Nectar Hello old friend! It's great to hear that you are doing so well with your health. Everything gets more difficult the older we get. Speaking of orthopaedics, I am getting my 6th joint replacement in a couple weeks. My skeleton looks like an erector set in Xrays. But damned, if those orthopods don't do a fantastic - almost unbelievable job - of keeping my wheels rolling! This Frankin-body keeps chugging along. I feel more fit at 74 than I did at 44. I put a "Peach Documentation Package" together for Dave to give to his tech. It's not perfect, but it should give a technician a pretty good roadmap for making repairs. If you ever need it send my your email via PM and I will email it to you. I'll be doing the same for Tercel and BlueBerry soon. If I recall the denouement of "Reservoir Dogs" - everyone shot each other at the end!

Unlike the hard sciences, economics predictions are not much more accurate than predicting long range weather. Getting any sort of consensus from "leading economists" is like herding cats. Most of the field has soiled itself with extreme political and cultural bias making pronouncements highly suspect no matter what the source. I tend to think that the persistent raising and lowering of interest rates is a lot like swinging a big sword in a crowd of people - someone always gets hurt and it's hard to justify the end result. Consider that the US is suffering a decades long housing shortage and now mortgage rates just (nearly) doubled overnight. For 12 years the FED has been inflating financial assets to the $12T benefit of the top quintile. Now, the deflation spiral will be put on the backs of the lowest quintile. A pretty good game of "heads we win, tales you lose." A far more equitable method of reducing inflation is raising wages, and increasing the share of the economic pie for labor. What Powell is doing is the exact opposite. He is, in essence, trying to undermine supply and demand of labor.

As to Powell's policy motivation: I think he is reacting to pressure from business think tanks to put an immediate end to wage gain momentum and increasing labor power. The only group that is being harmed with higher FED rates is wage-earners. Keeping the "reserve labor army" big enough to damp labor demands is a constant in FED policy.

And now you know.....the REST of the story!

@Buck115I forgot all about the dog named "Bullet." Of course no one forgets "Trigger." Although, personally I was a Hopalong Cassidy man myself.

Wait....what?

Holy Moly @JohnJ that's some serious muscle. My first car? A hand-me-down 1959 Renault Dauphine that I often had to hand-crank to start. She put out a whopping 30H.P.

I've always had a soft spot for those big Chyslers and owned several over the years. That particular car show in Palm SPrings had the Chrysler Car Club show up with maybe a dozen fabulous examples on tap. For sure one of the coolest mannequins I've ever photographed (yes, there have been quite a few!)

Real or is it Memorex?

Awww shucks, that's way to kind. But, people say I have a "weird eye" for photographs.

Who Goes There?

@boom3 Love that composition!

Humboldt State Crew

Yes, I only post my own stuff. I did lots of street photography when I lived up north. Glad you find them interesting!

Soup and Desert

Eureka, California

Ice Cream Man

TurkeyMan

My general feeling is that the older one gets, the more one should shift from equities to fixed income because if there's a big market correction, young people can ignore it and wait say, 5 years for recovery. Old folks may not have the luxury of five years to regain traction. Naturally, that's a generalization just meant to point out the timing problem of equity volatility. I'll still do a bit of day trading and momentum trading in stocks, but I won't risk a lot on say, holding any of Cathy Woods' growth stocks. Her stuff might be even more than five years away from paydirt. I'll be quite happy with another couple steep FED hikes going into 2023.

Maybe the old retired folk can finally earn a half-arse return on safe bonds. It's been like a 10-year walk through the desert to find reasonably safe income. Hope it's not a mirage.

Well, for sure you did yourself a good deed losing the weight! That's a mighty tough thing to do at our age. I began about 5 years ago and slowly worked all the years of bad eating off. We had a great "nutrition" thread over in the Lounge going for a few weeks last month. Lot's of us oldsters making up for sins of the past. No Bands? WTH? I'm looking to find some bandmates. My old fellow guitar player committed suicide after a nasty battle with long-Covid, and I dearly miss him. I'd love to find a bass player and a fiddler in my neighborhood for some cowboy campfire playing. I was conducting a 40-member ukulele group for about five years and then we moved out of the area. I dropped the uke, and picked up guitar at the ripe old age of 72, and have been working on it religiously since. I play a couple hours everyday on my faithful old '54 Martin. Good Lord I can sure get lost in my little world with my guitar! Yeah, I have a "stereo" but, I don't obsess over any of it. Sounds ok - like most stereos do- but I'd rather spend the time playing guitar and playing with home recording gears. Peace to you, Bro!

Well Sir! What a pleasure to see you too! And thank you for the kind words. Has life been good to you? I certainly hope so. I recall fondly your excellent posts! Don't be a stranger!