A while back, there was a discussion circulating on facebook and twitter about how it was morally acceptable to “punch a Nazi” because they were so reprehensible that their rights to, well, not be subject to violence, were lost. (See the New York Times for some of this discussion.) Now, to be sure, in my facebook feed and discussion groups, and in my twitter feed, it was largely a matter of people objecting to the idea that this is OK.... Read more
My twitter feed tells me it’s the 82nd anniversary of Social Security. So to mark the occasion, here’s an article that I had written not long ago with the original intent of aiming at trying to get published somewhere (hence, no links). As I haven’t figured out where to submit it to, I’ll post it here as usual instead. ********************* Not long ago, the Social Security Trustees released the latest Social Security annual report, and reported that the system will begin... Read more
I want to say a few words about our discourse around the events in Charlottesville, which has now become a simplistic rhetoric of “destroy the Nazis,” which is not very helpful, because there are three separate issues which we really should discuss separately. First, there are white nationalists – white supremacists – neo-Nazis – call them what you will, who have arrived at the opinion that they have the support of Donald Trump. (Note that I don’t use the label... Read more
So this has been my project over the past couple days: JanetheActuary.com! What’s this about? No, I’m not moving the blog there. But I thought it would be useful to have a separate site to store more permanent “stuff” to share with readers, especially with respect to retirement issues, the sort of thing that at the moment is just a passing link. I’m still very much just starting to build this out, and expect this to be a long-term project... Read more
In 1977, Frank Collin and his Chicago-based National Socialist Party of America (NSPA) “announced its intention to hold a pro-NSPA and white power demonstration on the steps of Skokie’s village hall on May 1, 1977.” (Details and quotes from Nazis in Skokie: Freedom, Community, and the First Amendment, by Donald Alexander Downs, a book which isn’t a prizewinner in readability but had the advantage of being in the basement bookshelves; I’d acquired it in grad school, though it’s a bit... Read more
This is a serious cop-out here, but I see in my twitter feed that the White Supremacist rally in Charlottesville has declared an “unlawful assembly.” CNN reports that The city of Charlottesville has declared Saturday’s gathering at Emancipation Park — site of the scheduled “Unite the Right” rally” of white nationalists and right-wing protesters — an unlawful assembly. Police officers are speaking on bullhorns, directing people to leave the park. So from all reports these are terrible people. And I’d... Read more
Which we watched last night with the kids in a birthday evening for my husband, after a “date night” dinner out and birthday cake afterwards. (I’m eating the leftovers for breakfast as I type.) The premise of the movie is this: three retirees find that their pension checks have been cut off because their former employer is moving its locations overseas. No American location, no one to pay the checks. And at the same time, the pension fund is being... Read more
First of all, I’d like to share a bit of a Megan McArdle article from the other day, “As a Woman in Tech, I Realized: These Are Not My People.” After describing an early career as a technology consultant, and her subsequent departure for, eventually, journalism, she writes No, the reason I left is that I came into work one Monday morning and joined the guys at our work table, and one of them said “What did you do this... Read more
If you’re not living under a rock, you’ve likely already read about the Google software engineer who wrote a memo discussing the company’s diversity efforts and their unintended harms, a memo which was perceived as an attack on women, which upset some female employees to such a degree that they skipped work, which produced the statement by Google CEO Sundar Pichai that portions of the memo “violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in... Read more
Today’s Tribune article on children left in hot cars features a proposal to require that all new cars include some sort of visual and audio warning device so that parents won’t forget to take their babies out of the car. Whether it’s a recognition that a rear door was opened just before the start of the trip, but not after the end of the drive, or a recognition of a “breath” in the backseat, advocates, or, specifically, U.S. Rep. Jan... Read more
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