We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
The other day, our esteemed editor made this statement in one of his posts. It was a good post, though I don't agree with much of the bias in it (Dalio is very intelligent, and quite successful, so his working model explains much of why he can be successful, though it's certainly not a good explanation of how economic cycles operate).
I happen to agree with Bird Dog's statement, too. But I believe economists often do themselves a disservice. Usually it's the economists who make predictions about macroeconomic outlooks which do this. By and large, it's the economists with Progressive tendencies. Though certainly some in the Republican camp get a bit outrageous.
I'm fond of saying economists can't make predictions, nor should they. They should offer scenarios. That's what I tend to do. Options of potential outcomes. Economics involves far too many variables to be a predictive science, though the basic rules can explain many things we see quite well, and that's what science is for.
I thought we knew the answer (in leftist politics), but it's getting muddled because "identity groups" can be so darn confusing. Now the Jews are hated on campi too because they are said to oppress Arabs, which makes Arab religion ok because they are termed a victim identity group even though religion of any sort is a negative for the left.
Almost every illegal hispanic immigrant is Roman Catholic, so does that make RC ok?
When I grew up, I thought the Democratic Party was the great friend of minorities and women. The party wanted a world of equality, I thought. Most people I knew believed that too. Sorry, I was an idiot.
The study called into question America’s educational credentialing system. While few American test-takers lacked a high school degree, the United States didn’t perform any better than countries with relatively high rates of failing to finish high school. And our college graduates didn’t perform well, either.
Thomas may have played the part of the doomed poet, excused by his genius from following the conventions of decent behavior. But he was a genius: few are the twentieth-century English poets who wrote lines that not only were memorable but that also make the soul vibrate. Thomas was one of them.
Thomas was aware from an early age of his own genius. In his book of marvelously evocative stories about his childhood and adolescence, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog, published in 1940, when he was 26, Thomas recalls reciting a poem he had written 12 years earlier, in which the lines appear:
The frost has known, From scattered conclave by the few winds blown, That the lone genius in my roots, Bare down there in a jungle of fruits, Has planted a green year, for praise, in the heart of my upgrowing days.
"The picture of science and religion at each other’s throats persists in mainstream media and scholarly journals, but each chapter in Galileo Goes to Jail shows how much we have to gain by seeing beyond the myths."
1:18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
1:19 For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."
1:20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
1:21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.
1:22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom,
1:23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
1:24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
1:25 For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.
Wiki: ″The Nymph′s Reply to the Shepherd″ (1596), by Sir Walter Raleigh, is a poem that responds to ″The Passionate Shepherd to His Love″ by Christopher Marlowe (published in 1599) wherein the courted nymph presents her rejection of the shepherd's invitation to pastoral life as perpetual idyll. We posted that Marlow poem a couple of weeks ago here.
The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd
If all the world and love were young, And truth in every shepherd's tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee and be thy love.
Time drives the flocks from field to fold When rivers rage and rocks grow cold, And Philomel becometh dumb; The rest complains of cares to come.
The flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward winter reckoning yields; A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall,
Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten-- In folly ripe, in reason rotten.
Thy belt of straw and ivy buds, Thy coral clasps and amber studs, All these in me no means can move To come to thee and be thy love.
But could youth last and love still breed, Had joys no date nor age no need, Then these delights my mind might move To live with thee and be thy love.
Top 10 secrets of Grand Central Terminal 
I thought we knew the answer (in leftist politics), but it's getting muddled because "identity groups" can be so darn confusing. Now the Jews are hated on campi too because they are said to oppress Arabs, which makes Arab religion ok because they are termed a victim identity group even though religion of any sort is a negative for the left.
Pic from a reader in Yankeeland this week 
Wiki: ″The Nymph′s Reply to the Shepherd″ (1596), by Sir Walter Raleigh, is a poem that responds to ″The Passionate Shepherd to His Love″ by Christopher Marlowe (published in 1599) wherein the courted nymph presents her rejection of the shepherd's invitation to pastoral life as perpetual idyll. We posted that Marlow poem a couple of weeks ago