Monday Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

You try to not feel too bad for NFL running backs but then you see that Sony Michele is retiring after just 5-seasons. He was a 1st round pick by the Patriots and am grateful that Michele helped New England win a Super Bowl but only 5-seasons? That's tough to take... Interesting - what the Mona Lisa might look like if painted today (according to AI)... William James believed over 150-years ago that science is not endowed with any authority - that simply does not exist. That to give science that sort of authority is just another form of censorship. He had it right then and it's correct today... Still blows my mind that Pete Carroll is a year older than Bill Belichick... As a historical reminder - Prohibition basically ended because the federal government needed the tax revenue. Prohibiting alcohol and giving up those taxes was a big mistake... Empty Quacks would be a good name for a band. Or a blog or Substack account about claims from "experts" that are provably false... Keep seeing billboards for legal weed dispensaries and it got me wondering that between these advertising expenses and the taxes they have to pay - how do these establishments compete with the street peddlers on price? I know the potency and trust factors are big reasons to go to a dispensary but still cost is a big factor for most people too... Satyric Liniment would be a good name for a soft rock cover band... The oldest scientific organization in America is the US Coast and Geodetic Survey (formally the US Coast Survey) which was founded under Thomas Jefferson. The more you know... Two points that I'd like to emphasize; I agree that the perception of the President's impact on the economy is outsized for his actual impact and that macroeconomic statistics are woefully inadequate in describing the economy. There's a reason most macroeconomic economists aren't wealthy. Having said this - it has to be admitted that Presidential policies have huge impacts on State and Federal workers, the education sector, and the military. Those are huge chunks of the economy. This brings us back to macroeconomic measurements woefully being unable to measure the impact of the President... As mentioned, Prohibition of alcohol only ended in this country because there was a taboo against deficit spending and the federal government needed the tax revenue. Today we'd just allow the national debt to explode while organized crime became bigger and normalized. Our ideas of what was allowable would be in the toilet. Who's to say this hasn't already happened in other areas? Say Big Pharma... It wasn't until 1863 that a wartime Congress was persuaded by members of Harvard to establish the National Academy of Sciences as the official scientific advisory board for the federal government. This was basically a money grab by scientists. Would be interesting to see the impact of this "Academy" has today compared to how much money has been spent on it... 

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