So I’m working my way through Amity Shlaes’ The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, which is admittedly over a decade old now (published in 2007). A bit of a summary as well as its reception at the time is available at Wikipedia: her key argument is that not only was Hoover inept in how he reacted to the emerging depression (especially in implementing the Smoot-Hawley Tariff) but that FDR also, by his actions prolonged the Depression. ... Read more
“Freedom,” Winston writes in George Orwell’s 1984, “is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” Is there an objective truth? Postmodern intellectuals have been insisting that’s not the case for long enough now, though, of course, once-upon-a-time that was in the sense that there is no objective “right” or “wrong” morally speaking, or that what defines great literature or art is not objectively discernable (nor is it possible to discern... Read more
Hey, everyone — the article below might seem outdated, but I had been shopping it around for publication, got quizzical looks, and I finally concluded I don’t have the time or motivation to try to wordsmith it to make it more persuasive, if, indeed, that is possible. So please be patient with the length of it and share your reaction in the comments. Everyone has made their pronouncements about the Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia Supreme Court decision in which... Read more
Chicago is, its civic leaders worry, a place of deep income divides — from deeply impoverished Grand Crossing (median income $21,135) to wealthy West De Paul (median income $148,113), as a browse of Statistical Atlas reveals. It’s a city where those leaders fret that the middle class is leaving, leaving a sharp divide between the rich and poor, and it shows up as one of the “most segregated cities” in the United States (for example, #4 in USA Today, assessing metro... Read more
Sometimes I write about politics. Sometimes I have things I want to say that I want to communicate, that I want others to hear, that I want to persuade people of. Other times I know that I offer no particular expertise on a subject but just want to get something off my chest. But I am aware that I haven’t said much about Trump lately. The words I’d use to describe the situation, well, require a lot of finger-stretching to... Read more
Should a man who: was a member of the Nazi party, pressured ghetto-confined Jews to sign over title to their factory, used ghetto-confined Jews as labor without paying them a wage, and sold wares to the German military, be honored as a “righteous man,” not merely by means of a statue but a movie celebrating him, a movie used to teach the Holocaust to schoolchildren? We all know the rest of the story — that Oskar Schindler came to see... Read more
Remember when Pluto was demoted from planetary status and given the name “dwarf planet,” confusing everyone for whom the name implies that it is indeed a planet, albeit a small one? OK, maybe I betray my age. But it was a peculiar sort of label: “yes, it’s a dwarf planet. No, it’s not a real planet.” Or on my Forbes site, I write about social insurance, and I say that it may have the word “insurance” in its name, but... Read more
One Cupich. Two weeks ago, Cardinal Blase Cupich announced that the Catholic schools of the Archdiocese of Chicago would be responding to the George Floyd killing by including the item in its curriculum: In an in-person interview at the rectory at Holy Name Cathedral, Cupich said the archdiocese’s goal is to have all Catholic school students participate in a discussion about Floyd’s killing and its aftermath. “I think we need an educational piece in our parishes, in our schools, in... Read more
Here’s a bit of an anecdote from the life of Jane the Actuary: I own a vintage sewing machine — a Kenmore model 158.904 from the 60s which I bought for $25 at a garage sale when it was already old, and have taken along with me from apartment to home to move-up home, since then. It is sorely lacking in bells & whistles — it has cams (templates for making custom stitches) and a buttonhole-making device, but a modern... Read more
Have you had to write goals as a part of your company’s performance review process? Reader, I hated this — as a consulting firm we had some goals which were prescribed (largely around billable time) and were supposed to, in addition, some up with additional goals by which to be judged at the end of the year. Sometimes they were dictated to me, sometimes I was told to come up with them myself, sometimes they made sense within the context... Read more
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