Self-Defense I am watching the Kyle Rittenhouse trial and have just witnessed his testimony on cross-examination. The court has just taken a ten minute break because this eighteen-year-old defendant who shot three people in Kenosha last August, broken down crying as he tried to describe the events that involved his shootings. His defense is clearly oriented towards describing this young man, who was seventeen at the time of the incident, as young and innocent and…
Treat Arbitrage Kim and I spend a lot of time commenting to each other about Betty. Try as we might, we are not fully able to understand what floats Betty’s boat other than the immediate gratification of as much food as she can possibly eat. Indeed, there seem to be no limits to how much she thinks she can eat and is apparently stuck in that mindset of deprivation which probably defined most of her…
The Himalayan Plains Wedged between the Hindu Kush to the West, Tibet to the North and the mysterious Bhutan to the East lies the fifteen hundred miles of solid mountain range, the highest in the world, known as the Himalayas. The Himalayas are so vast that they encroach on a number of countries, but the bulk of the range and the alluvial plains that flow southward from them constitute the country of Nepal. This area…
Guns or Butter There is a classic economics model and a graphical curve that represents the trade-off between the economic production of guns or butter. The phrase has come to represent the societal standards of how fiscal expenditures should emphasize defense spending versus social programs. The term originates from around the time of WWI when the U.S. faced an uncomfortable shortage of gunpowder, specifically because it did not control the production of necessary nitrates, which…
The Reverse Commute On Wednesdays I drive down towards downtown San Diego, which is where the University of San Diego is located. I was a commuter in New York City for years, but have never been in that groove (a.k.a. rut) here in San Diego. I teach from 7pm to 9:50pm on Wednesday nights and will do so through May of next year (actually 7pm to 8:50pm in the Spring). That has me leaving home…
The Hallowed Halls I am once again sitting here in the hallway of a building on the campus of the University of San Diego, where I am an adjunct professor in the graduate business program. When I was at Cornell’s graduate business school for ten years, I was not alone as an adjunct professor, but it was not like here. I do not know, nor do I plan to investigate the exact balance between full-time…
Bootstrapping Bootstrapping is a complicated word. Much more complicated than I had imagined until I started looking into it. I would ask you to play along with me and make a note to yourself about what you think of when someone uses the term bootstrapping. I don’t want to bias your thought process by adding a context. The term derives from the small leather loop or tab at the back of a man’s boot that…
Immigrants Everywhere This morning, two of my friends, Kevin and Roger, are on a motorcycle ride in Mexico that they wanted me to join them on. My teaching obligation made that impossible, but that hasn’t stopped them from sending me their usual array of inane texts with sophomoric humor and political undercurrent. This morning they are preparing to head back home so I got a string of emails making fun of how much money they…
It’s the Economy, Stupid There is much discussion in the air about how to keep the economy strong. This is always a big topic at any time, but I think it is fair to say that it is almost the only issue that really affects everyone. Issues like abortion may be an example of a non-economic issue (though I bet someone could draw a loose connection), but whether we are talking about infrastructure, immigration, defense…
Perishable I am sitting here on election night, 2021 and it just so happens that Kim and I watched a documentary on Gettysburg. We were just looking for something to fill in after a movie (Cast Away) that ended about an hour before we generally like to head off to bed. We did not choose it for any politically-motivated reason. And yet, the last part of the documentary focused entirely on Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.…