Introducing Graham

Dash asked for a co-cat, so we went to the County Shelter and adopted Graham.  J worked up his Halloween costume, which is merely virtual.  He doesn't have to wear it when he greets the trick-r-treaters.

Carter and the New Poor

It always amazes me when people discover that their policies had what they think were unintended consequences.  Let's say that you're the President, and that you have a Fed chief who wants to cut inflation by, say, reducing wages.  Let's say that you're intrigued by neoliberal ideas, that it might be a good idea to get rid of jobs better done in countries with lower wages, while keeping the jobs that require more "brain-power" and can't (or so you thought) be performed by darker-skinned people.  And you're successful! You do it!  Wages fall, eventually by about 50%.  Jobs disappear.  And the real industry, the one we control, takes over.  FIRE.  And gets bigger and bigger and bigger.  Then it re-writes the rules and, less than ten years later, crashes the economy.

And then you wonder how people ended up so precarious.  Yeesh!  They haven't taught critical thinking skills in this country for a long, long time.