Welcome to shabbos for Jewish cats. It is CaturSaturday, April 5, 2025, and National Deep Dish Pizza Day, celebrating one of the culinary glories of Chicago, and certainly the best species of pizza in America (do not bother to question this). Here is a short video showing you Chicago’s highlights:
It’s also National Dandelion Day, National Raisin and Spice Bar Day, National Caramel Day, and National Flash Drive Day.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 5 Wikipedia page.
The Biological Sciences Division is hosting a free field trip to the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie today, and I’m going (there’s also a free lunch catered by Kaurman’s a Jewish deli), so posting will be light. Bear with me; I do my best!
Da Nooz:
*Don’t worry!: even though the stock market tanked yesterday, with the Dow down 2200 points (about 5.5%%)—the second huge drop in a row caused by Trump’s idiotic tariff imposition—things will be okay. Or so Trump tells us, as he says the markets will come roaring back and America will be prosperous again. Does he really believe what he’s saying, or is he simply lying? It’s hard to tell with this man.
A sharp rise in trade-war intensity sent Wall Street spiraling Friday, pushing the Nasdaq into a bear market denoting a 20% decline from its peak.
China’s decision to apply a 34% levy to all imported goods from the U.S. next Thursday, after President Trump’s tariffs go into effect, rattled markets in part because it further deflated hopes that a global settlement could be reached soon.
Further hitting sentiment, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the U.S. economy was more likely to face a period of higher prices and weaker growth than seemed possible a few weeks ago because of larger-than-anticipated tariff hikes.
The S&P 500 dropped 6%, the Nasdaq slid 5.8% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2231 points. The carnage was widespread, with 14 S&P 500 stocks rising for the day and 28 dropping 10% or more. The marketwide toll from the two-day tariff rout surged to a record $6.6 trillion.
The torrent of selling late this week shows investors coming to grips with the grim implications of the standoff. The levies announced late Wednesday were deeper and more aggressive than the business world expected. Retaliation stands to intensify the economic effects of the policies, which could reduce consumer income and slow economic growth.
Now investors are bracing for further conflict—none of which is likely to improve the outlook for the global economy or corporate profits, the strongest driver of stock prices.
Even as Trump left the door open to making deals, he vowed new tariffs on drugs and microchips. Investors took little comfort from Trump’s stated willingness to negotiate.
JPMorgan analysts on Thursday boosted their odds on a global recession to 60%.
Trump remained unbowed, saying that now is a great time to get rich and that “China played it wrong, they panicked.”
We may well fall into a recession (from now on, the “r-word”), and it doesn’t make me feel any better than Trump’s stupid decision may make people think twice who voted for him. After all, he’s not going to lose his 401k savings or have to tighten his belt because of rising prices at the grocery store or used-car lot. The decision to raise tariffs across the board is one of the craziest things he’s done, and that’s among a lot of crazy things. I am sure that this will be the lead story on the evening news, and also that he will find a way to construe this as a good thing.
*I guess today is Tariff Day, as the NYT has an article contradicting what I said above, declaring that Trump’s aides insist the tariffs are a good thing. But perhaps they’re just lying to keep their jobs (article is archived here).
In the weeks leading up to his expansive global tariffs, President Trump and his top aides tried to prime the public for economic pain. They warned that while there would be fallout from their aggressive trade strategy, it would prove short-lived and benefit the economy in the long run.
Investors, businesses and others made clear on Thursday that the U.S. economy was not ready to accept that approach. Global markets tumbled, economists warned of a possible recession and consumers braced for price increases on cars, food, clothing and more.
The early tumult underscored the high stakes of Mr. Trump’s agenda, which the president has framed as a painful medical procedure to rescue an economy he likened to a “sick patient.” In the eyes of Mr. Trump, the United States is going to “boom” once his tariffs have had time to reset the nation’s trade relationships, raise revenue and boost domestic production.
But those tariffs are expected to send prices skyrocketing in the interim, an unwelcome development for Americans already struggling with years of elevated prices. Several economists have increased the odds of a recession in their forecasts as they projected a slowdown in consumer spending, business investment and economic growth.
A new analysis from the Yale Budget Lab found that Mr. Trump’s overall tariffs could cause price levels to rise 2.3 percent in the short term. That would translate into an average loss of $3,800 in purchasing power per household based on 2024 dollars.
In an interview on Thursday, Stephen Miran, who leads the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, acknowledged that the economy could be “bumpy” for an unspecified period as the administration pursued its agenda, which includes tariffs, tax cuts and deregulation.
“It shouldn’t be surprising, given the historic scope and speed of the president’s actions, that there are some reactions around financial markets, like what you’re seeing,” he said.
But Mr. Miran maintained that the true cost of the president’s trade policies would ultimately be borne by other countries, adding: “I don’t agree with the argument Americans are ultimately going to be paying for these tariffs.”
That is a lie, and Miran knows it.
The White House assurances offered a stark contrast with the view broadly adopted by economists, who believe Mr. Trump’s tariffs threaten to exacerbate inflation, possibly undermining the recent work of the Federal Reserve to try to bring prices under control.
And I’ll end here, as I’m being overcome by the strong odor of mendacity.
*Justin Wolfers, a professor of economics at the University of Michigan, has a NYT op-ed called, “Your life will never be the same after these tariffs.” Never? Oy vey!
Small tariffs create small problems. Big tariffs create huge ones. Take Mr. Trump’s 25 percent tariff on vehicles, which is expected to raise their prices by roughly $4,000. Many families, like mine, will probably decide not to buy a second car. That creates far bigger problems than an aging washer. Now, we’re constantly juggling how to get our kids to all their activities, and ourselves to work, with only one set of wheels.
And it’s not just cars. These are across-the-board tariffs, so they will distort virtually every purchase you make. In each case you’ll have to stop your baked-in calculations, recalibrate and find a way to make do — perhaps substituting frozen vegetables for fresh vegetables, a less effective medication for a higher-priced import, or corn syrup for sugar. And in each case, you’re worse off.
. . . . By the way, tariffs don’t distort just your buying decisions, they also distort what businesses make. Just as tariffs lead you to buy less desirable alternatives, they lead businesses to channel labor and capital into less desirable — that is, less productive — activities.
The tariffs announced on Wednesday are roughly 10 times as high as most other industrialized countries, and higher than the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariffs (of Great Depression fame).
Mr. Trump’s latest tariffs will lead folks to rethink not only whether to replace their washing machine — as they did in 2018 — but also their dryers, refrigerators, stoves, groceries, clothes, cars and even everyday essentials.
Many of the substitutions we’ll make will be quite painful. If a 1 percent tariff leads you to switch from real guacamole to a pea-based alternative, then you really didn’t care about guac all that much. But if it takes a 20 percent tariff to get you to switch, that’s a sure sign that going without the real thing is a serious hardship. And this is why higher tariffs generate a far greater amount of pain. These forces aren’t independent of each other. They interact. Or in math, they multiply, which means their costs rise in the square of the tariff rate. That leads to some pretty painful arithmetic.
. . . Perhaps voters pulled the lever for Mr. Trump with warm memories of the good economic times. But the reality of his first term is that there was a lot more tariff talk than action. They were barely more than a bump in the road. This time, they’re a mountain. And so the impact will be more like a crash than last time’s comfortable jolt.
Maybe Trump, whose economic advisors certainly told him not to do what he did, will come to his senses and cut the tariffs back. And maybe the Moon will turn to cheese.
*As always on Friday, I’ll steal a few items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news-and-humor column, called this week, “TGIF: Our beef is beautiful.”
→ UATX merit-first admissions: My wife’s fake university, the University of Austin at Texas (I think), is making a lot of “university” noises lately. UATX recently announced their merit-based admissions policy: automatic admission for students who score 1460+ on the SAT (didn’t realize it was a school for the educationally challenged), 33+ on the ACT (could get that in my sleep), or 105+ on the CLT. What, you may ask, is the CLT? If you don’t know, you’re clearly not cut out for the meritocratic bloodbath that would be your freshman year. Me, I got a 108.
UATX also said that admission depends on students meeting “basic eligibility” and an “integrity check.” “Basic eligibility” is such a broad category that I’m a little alarmed at what it could include. But I love this. I do. Merit is so in. Until my kids have to apply to college—then what matters is soul and grit and whether Yale wants a water polo–compliant pool next to the dorm or not. What troubles me is that UATX seems very real. Which means, of course, that I’d like to reiterate that I was always for it, always a vocal UATX champion, and actually, I founded it, despite the complaints of my wife, who didn’t believe in me. You’re welcome, America.
→ Are you hiding DEI in your attic? After the University of Michigan announced that it planned to close its DEI office and discontinue its DEI strategic plan, the dean of their art and design school announced that he intended to maintain DEI, saying: “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) will continue at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design because our academic program and DEI initiatives are legally compliant, in alignment with our university values, and an extension of the mission of our school.” It’s been a little strange to see how fast everyone has rolled over for Trump’s cultural revolution, and my only explanation is that most people—especially in corporate America—hated this stuff and wanted any excuse to be done with it. But not the University of Michigan art school. They’re putting up a fight. They’re #Resisting. They must continue to discriminate against men, and I can’t even blame them. Men should not paint. So, all in all, I support them. As I tell Suzy when she’s asking for dating advice (i.e., sitting nearby), men should not be artists. If it takes a DEI bureaucrat to explain that to them, so be it.
I didn’t believe this one, but look at the link. The quotes are real—including Katy Perry’s!
→ Blue Origin women’s crew: Jeff Bezos’s space company, Blue Origin, is sending an all-female crew to space—insane, I agree, since what exactly is the plan when one of the valves break and there’s no husband to call?—and they sat down with Elle. Gayle King, who, along with Katy Perry, was chosen to take part in the flight, said, “I can honestly say it has never been a dream of mine. I was having a conversation with Katy, and she said, ‘Well, maybe you need to get different dreams.’ And I just thought, Wow.”
Then Katy Perry said, “We are going to put the ‘ass’ in astronaut,” which I do love. I’ve never been more interested in a space journey. Their plan is to bring lipstick and lash extensions to space, which they claim to be a first, but you really never know. People have interests. I don’t judge.
→ Wow, the entire Hamas narrative was a lie? Hamas recently revised its casualty figures, dropping the names of thousands of previously reported deaths in the Israel-Hamsa war. And it looks like they vastly overcounted the number of women and children. The Jerusalem Post reports that 72 percent of all deaths are men between the ages of 13 and 55. It suggests a very different story from their previous claim that 70 percent of casualties were. . . women and children. We anxiously await the splashy corrections. The groveling mea culpas. When my lovely hummus lady at the local farmers market in Los Angeles found out I was Jewish, she said it was totally cool as long as I didn’t “want to kill babies.” So I can’t wait for this important correction to trickle down her way as the American mainstream media engages in a broad reflection that I am sure is coming right. . . about. . . now?
*I want to end this dire week with some good news, and there is some. Ophelia, one of the escaped otters from a Wisconsin Zoo, has been recaptured, but her mate Louie is still on the loose. A huge leatherback sea turtle (400 lb.; this is the largest species of sea turtle), who was entangled in ropes in Cape Cod Bay, has been freed by rescuers. As the website notes:
The turtle was disentangled, given a health assessment including bloodwork, and tagged with satellite and acoustic tags for post-release monitoring. The tags applied include an acoustic transmitter, which operates like an EZ Pass transponder, allowing the turtle to be detected for up to ten years by a vast array of underwater receivers that stretch from Canada to Florida. The turtle also received a “survivorship” tag to determine short-term (30-day) outcome, and a traditional satellite tag that will monitor the turtle’s movements and dive behavior in near real-time for up to a year. The turtle, nicknamed ‘Phinney’ by Barnstable Harbormaster responders, can be followed on the New England Aquarium’s Sea Turtle Tracker.
At Botany Pond, Mordecai and Esther are still schmoozing, but the hen hasn’t yet started nesting. We’re told that next week they’ll be putting the final touches on the pond. Stay tuned; I think that nesting is imminent as soon as the weather warms up.
Finally NBC’s “Today” show site has “150 Dark Humor Jokes” (I know ones a lot darkers!), and I’ll try to put a few amusing ones here. Several of these are groaners.
- A man goes to a therapist and says, “Doctor, why do people keep ignoring me?” The therapist replies, “Next!”
- When ordering food at a restaurant, I asked the waiter how they prepare their chicken. “Nothing special,” he explained. “We just tell them they’re going to die.”
- Don’t challenge Death to a pillow fight. Unless you’re prepared for the reaper cushions.
- Today, I asked my phone “Siri, why am I still single?” and it activated the front camera.
- I’d like to have kids one day. I don’t think I could stand them any longer than that, though.
- At home, they treat me like God. I’m generally ignored until someone wants something.
- Why did the lion go to therapy? He found out his wife was a cheetah.
Tha-tha-that’s all, folks! I’ll be here all year!
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, a chonky Hili makes it up a tree:
Andrzej: It’s been a long time since you climbed on the tree.Hili: There is an alien dog running around so it’s safer here.
Ja: Dawno nie wdrapywałaś się na drzewa.Hili: Obcy pies tu biegnie, więc tu jest bezpieczniej.
And a picture of Szaron. Polish caption: Po tej trawie coś chodzi. Translation: ““Something is walking on the grass.”
*******************
From Dave, who took this photo. Is the one on the right superfluous?
From Now That’s Wild:
From The Dodo Pet:
Masih is quiet, but Titania is tweeting again. If you see “Community notes” under the tweet, be sure to read them!
The Prime Minister of Britain is now literally banning Japanese cultural artefacts.
This is fascism. https://t.co/8DDzQbXQB2
— Titania McGrath (@TitaniaMcGrath) March 27, 2025
From Barry, who said, “He doesn’t look pleased.”
I told him about tariffs.
— Comfortably Numb (@numb.comfortab.ly) 2025-04-03T10:43:07.031Z
The woman is Stephanie Turner, her act was not “hate speech,” but bravery (she was expelled from the tournament), and USA Fencing is reprehensible. Note that USA Fencing’s motivation for this dumb policy is to create “inclusive safe spaces”. But the male fencer could have competed against other males, and fencing even has “mixed tournaments.”
— USA Fencing (@USAFencing) April 3, 2025
Here’s an interview with Turner in which she describes her actions:
And of course ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio weighs in. His ignorance is the hill he will die on:
You’re right. It’s that simple. They’re not real girls.
Orwell said: ‘freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.’
Politicians too scared to state out loud that males have a physical advantage cannot defend women’s rights. pic.twitter.com/La8NWjlnD0
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 31, 2025
From Luana; I didn’t know that Muhammad discouraged public acts of prayer:
“Have you ever wondered why some Muslims pray on streets, at traffic signals, or even inside trains and planes?”
– @thevoicetruth1 pic.twitter.com/jaL7rxd7Jh— Imtiaz Mahmood (@ImtiazMadmood) April 4, 2025
From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:
A Belgian Jewish girl was gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. Has she lived, she'd be 92 years old today.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-04-05T10:08:58.051Z
Two posts from Doctor Cobb. First, things with faces:
I googled "houses that look surprised" and I'm glad I did.
— Kalvin the Reindeer (@kalvinmacleod.bsky.social) 2025-04-04T14:33:36.639Z
The not-so-good old days! A lot of the guys are wearing striped pajamas, too.
Our throwback from the University Archive this week celebrates World Party Day! It shows students dancing at a Valentine's pyjama hop in February 1959. 📷 EUL UA/P/3h #WorldPartyDay #ThrowbackThursday #UniOfExeterArchive #Archives
— University of Exeter Special Collections (@exeterunispeccoll.bsky.social) 2025-04-03T08:53:15.297Z
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up. -Booker T. Washington, reformer, educator, and author (5 Apr 1856-1915)
Tariffs are simply a purchase tax on selected imported goods. Obviously they are paid by the purchaser and the beneficiary is the government that collects them.
Slightly more complex is the game theory on retaliation: should Canada, for example, impose similar purchase taxes making it more expensive for Canadians to but American goods? It feels right to do it, but it only hurts Canadian consumers. There is the secondary effect of hurting the profits of the producers of those goods, but that is achieved either way, as long as consumers don’t buy them. As the stock market tanks the tariffs will have to be reversed, probably after ‘victory’ is declared.
Both facets of tariffs are simply sticks to encourage behavioural modification. Consumers won’t pay any extra if they don’t buy goods from country X. It is gratifying to see all the ‘Made in Canada’ stickers in the stores, and people are examining labels carefully.
Of course the big question is does Trump believe that tariffs are a panacea, or is he simply looking at milking American consumers with an extra tax to make a windfall for his administration?
Canada should not retaliate, especially should we not retaliate in ways that would violate the existing USMCA agreement as it will make it harder for both sides to climb down. President Trump says he believes, falsely or incorrectly depending on your view of him, that the “problem” is the trade imbalance. Anything that worsens the imbalance by hampering our import of U.S. manufactured goods makes it harder for him to declare victory. Canadians can knock themselves out looking for Made in Canada labels and choosing to pay more but our government should not go down the retaliation road officially and force us to pay more. Anti-American fever has completely warped the current election campaign away from Canada’s internal, and eternal!, hard choices.
We should adapt to the possibility that steel-making may die here. We don’t have the coal, not in the east where the mills are, the interim Prime Minister doesn’t like coal or steel on NetZero grounds, and the mills were always uneconomical until they were bought out by multi-national steel firms and modernized by shedding workers, or closed altogether. They were part of a long-vanished “industrial strategy” supported by, you guessed it, tariffs.
Seems like the very bewildered (and emotionally hurt) Australians and Singaporeans are taking a similar, no retaliation, response. Both are very free trade countries with almost no tariffs and long term US allies.
D.A.
NYC
The cheese is called frico – Detroit pan pizza features it too – aka “Pizza Hut”.
Frico is also available on its own .. in theory..,
What? Glad you asked : Definitely Monterey Jack or maybe other such salty cheeses.
Great pizza video – I got some ideas…
For what it’s worth, that fruit is from China and immigrants brought them here and unlike the home country we developed ways to farm them.
The history is hazy as the classic name is “Chinese Gooseberry”, one possible theory was it was a nickname by USMC personal stationed/training here.
I worry about people engaging in this space tourism stuff…even the Bezos/Blue Origin suborbital flights as being inherently dangerous. I am encouraged that Blue Origin has an escape rocket system in case of booster malfunction, but expect that any space tourist experiencing an escape event will be either thrilled beyond belief or cleaning out their seats at the end of the day. There is a short video (it was a short flight!) of the escape system on Blue Origin in action on an uncrewed flight at https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/blue-origin-rocket-mishap-triggers-escape-system-rcna47318
That landing looked pretty hard!
What happened to those voices who used to decry neoliberalism and “unfettered free trade?” Have they all become market fundamentalists now? Hasn’t Trump done exactly what they used to say they wanted?
Matt Taibbi has made one of his recent pieces free-to-all: “Biden Lied About Everything, Including Nuclear Risk, During Ukraine Operation”. It’s based on a much larger piece in the NYT, “The Secret History of the War in Ukraine”. It’s worth a read.
There is nothing good about these tariffs. The Trump tariffs are not based on some sophisticated calculation whereby turning cog X will turn cog Y to turn cog Z. No. There is no simple physics of causation here. Trump’s calculation is one of intimidation. But what if the rest of the world—or large parts of it—aren’t intimidated, but push back? His claim that there were will be short term pain for long term gain is a fantasy.
There are those who say that Trump can set things back to where they were if he decides that the tariffs were too stringent. But that’s not true either. With this stupid act, Trump told the world that the United States of American cannot be trusted to be a global partner in trade, the world’s source of financial stability. He blew up any confidence that can be placed in the United States in the future. Even if the tariffs are removed, the damage has been done, and it will take decades of confidence building to fix what’s broken. And even then, the United States will remain a risky bet. After all, our system allows a madman such as President Trump to wield power with little to hold him back, and there is nothing to keep another madman from rising to the presidency in the future.
Thanks Norman – you saved me the trouble of writing the above myself. B/c I agree one hundred percent. Particularly the “lost trust” problem with our allies and how Trump has buggered a lot of our soft power with the rest of the world.
That’s what happens when you trust narcissists/psychopaths dark triad people.
Amazing how, with a public record of over forty years of his lies and broken agreements so many people EVER take him at his word. Which untrustworthy, chaotic brand is now our national brand. “sad”.
best to you Norman,
D.A.
NYC
Best to you, too, David. Thanks to both you and to Mark R. (below) for engaging.
Yes. Thank you Norman, David, and Mark (below!) for engaging. Could not have said it better. I seem to recall Joe Biden, upon his election, trying to woo back the world by saying that tRUMP’s election had been just a one-off…an aberration. Well not so much it appears. My wife is in Williamsburg, today, a home of the Revolution, engaging in peaceful protest…I am afraid that I have grown too weary and despondent to engage anymore. David, my read of this despicable wad of human flesh is he is totally amoral…no word, no lies, no truth value…just pure, total, amorality.
Just as Musk has destroyed his brand of “Tesla” Trump has destroyed the brand of “America”.
As you said, that’s not something that just comes back after an Oops, sorry! We all learned in school that here in America, esp. post WW2, we’re the “good guys”. Yes, that is a euphemism, but Trump has done away with that notion as well. Our brand is trash.
Great analogy.
Reminds me of the accounting technical term “good will” as an asset.
Yeap. So much for “exceptionalism”, a term I was never comfortable with anyway. Attraction is always better than promotion but we’re not attracting anything other than ill will now.
Enter BRICS, not exactly or it wasn’t an option for most countries but now it could be if looking for an alternative to US instability.
Google:
“Some view BRICS as an attempt to counterbalance the influence of Western-dominated global institutions.”
If Herr Leader keeps pounding away with trade imbalance tariffs BRICS might get what it wants by default.
Ninja swords? Does he mean katana? Calling it ninja sword is in itself an (unintended?) comedy.
A quick note of thanks for the short video on Pequod’s Pizza, which I have not (yet) tried. When I was a grad student at the U of C in the early 70s, Uno’s was our special treat, spoiling me for any other type of pizza for the rest of my life! I’ll definitely put Pequod’s on my list for my next visit to Chicago…..
“Does he really believe what he’s saying, or is he simply lying? It’s hard to tell with this man.”
From the moment he descended the escalator and gave his first campaign speech I’ve struggled to understand what words mean to this man. I’ve come to believe two things:
1) He believes his “common sense” is perfect. If he feels it to be true then it must be so.
2) When speaking publicly the meaning of the words he uses is completely irrelevant to him. All that matters to him is the effect the words have on his intended audience. The meaning to him is in the effect the words have not their content. The content may be true or it may be false but to him that’s not even relevant enough to check – or he just assumes the words to be true since they came out of his mouth.
🎯.
I have a more Fascist take on he-who-must-not-be-named. The most important thing is the Leader’s indomitable will. It shall overcome such weak notions as “truth”, “facts”, “reality” “logic”, “morality”, etc. etc. Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will is perfectly named; they would never have named it as triumph of the righteous, or truth, or virtuous.
Tariffs aside, the thing about not buying that new washer or dryer or what have you, I’ve stopped spending money on anything but food, utilities and shelter because what my cash buys for years now is complete trash. The quality of goods, whether appliances, electronics, hardware, clothing– you name it– is so poor that I’m simply not willing to trade my dollars for what’s available. Readers have commented that we can’t have our old economy back — one where we pay our hard workers a good wage to build high quality products at home. If that’s true it’s a shame. Other readers have commented that all people want are cheap goods. I’m not one of those people. I prefer to buy less but pay more for a good product. It’s nearly impossible to buy quality plumbing hardware, car parts, even the smallest seemingly insignificant products (pens and paper, electric fans and heaters) rarely work well and don’t last. The kind of frustration that injects into everyday life is overwhelming. I’m not sure where this fits into the larger conversation about Trump and our economy but things as they’ve been ain’t working for me.
Yes Debi, planned obsolescence or just crappy design and /or manufacture seem to have overtaken us. But I believe a bright light in all this to be Macs…though I will not know for sure for yet another ten years! We bought a new Mac Powerbook Air last week, replacing a 2015 powerbook pro (with a 2011 processor) that with its latest system upgrade would no longer support Word or Powerpoint. That 2015 machine itself had replaced a 2007ish Mac laptop. The cost of this computer was half of what I paid in 2015 and Word and Power Point were fully back compatible with files I had made circa 2003. I could pull up, open, copy, paste and edit electrons from twenty years ago! I found that to be amazing. Plus add in Zoom,Teams, and even our time on WEIT and I am forever amazed by this technology and its engineering design and manufacture. Fingers crossed that the continued pushing of chip real estate on this new machine will not show a loss of integrity over the next several years. So far I am pleased with iphones, ipads, and macs….but of course always fingers crossed.
Oh and our flat screen tv’s seem to last longer with less maintenance than our old picture tube/vacuum tube machines. Even with the non-graceful degradation of software, the increased quality of information seems to be of better value than the 200-300 dollar 19inch b&w then color portables It seemed I was buying every few years….again fingers crossed!
I’m with ya on computers and televisions. Those are notable exceptions to the rule. Thank goodness something works. Enjoy your new Mac!
I generally don’t recommend products, but I’m very pleased so far with my new Brother desktop colour laser printer, and with Mitsubishi Uniball™ pens. YMMV.
Oh I do appreciate the pen recommendation. I’m always searching for a good one. Will check those out. Thanks.
We have to weigh the values though. Look at what things cost now (which, if humans aren’t involved like medicine or education) is VASTLY cheaper than in “our day” (I’m 55). Like Jim B. above notes.
Eg. In the 1970s color TVs were burglar-izable loot. Nobody home breaks for a cheap flat screen anymore.
We have to weigh this with the fact that we CAN’T get anything at all repaired and the planned obsolescence I (and my friends at WEIT) often complain about.
We live in a very, very disposable society which rankles old timers like us, but these times are much wealthier (worldwide, especially in the USA) and “things” are cheaper. So there are tradeoffs.
All angles considered – I’d rather live now.
And I’m still alive. Which is great! 🙂
D.A.
NYC
Remember even when stereo component systems, SLR cameras, and VCRs were worth breaking into houses for? And cartoons depicting a burglar always showed him with his little raccoon mask stuffing silver candlesticks into his bag. Now he wears a COVID mask to clean out a drug store and people think he’s just being respectful. That’s supposed to be one reason household property crime is down. Houses don’t have anything in them that fences will pay money for. Personal info for identity theft is easy enough to phish on line.
Cars are another matter. The harder they are to steal, the greater the incentive to jack them at gunpoint. (Yes, the bad guys have guns in Canada.)
Our politics loves binaries if not the gametic kind. “Trump is stupid” and “Trump is a genius” both fall flat. The tariff move is a high-risk, potentially high-reward gamble on future US economic might. It’s a massive power play with plausible mechanisms pointing to both success and failure. Other nations wouldn’t be angry and scared if they believed the facile line that US consumers will end up paying the costs—they rightly foresee lost exports, lost leverage, possible political turmoil at home, with little gain for their pain. China and Russia have seen this play before; oddly, the old Cold Warriors on the Republican side adopt the script of sacrificing people today for that blessed promise of our economic tomorrow.
Trump wields the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA) to gamble with the global economy. Will the Democrats in 2026 push to revisit Article 1 of our constitution and reconsider the wisdom of Congress having delegated so much of its authority to the president and the executive branch? This has been a bipartisan problem for decades—but each party loves it when they get to play petty autocrat.
It has been a long-term problem, but getting hit upside the head with a wet fish does get one’s attention, and just might lead to beneficial reforms someday.
Here’s a quick point.
EVEN if the Trump people are “evening the field” and even if they got the math right regarding trade numbers (and they failed spectacularly, unbelievably really). …
…even if that…
As the USA, our power, our trade relations and our soft power can’t be plotted on a tab. Our soft power – the view and trust of the United States in the minds of billions of people, partners and even enemies, is unquantifiable. It is THAT they’re screwing with. This disaster is separate from a quibble over idiotic and badly (and unjustly! and incoherantly) calculated “trade imbalances”.
Our power is our soft power backed by our dollar (whose value is also soft – it is based on trust).
THAT is why this current retardation of our country is a big time disaster.
D.A.
NYC
(sorry for Roolz violation)