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Hope all goes well… “We’d like to thank every one of you for being here on this happy day in a rather strange time and a beautiful place,” I said, newly ordained by some online ministry, officiating my first marriage, not the most lucrative Plan B but better than nothing. One of my four sisters stood with her fiancé at the altar, another fifty family and friends zoomed in for the occasion. “Marriage is the most impor

“MMT has already led us to a better place,” said Warren Mosler, pioneer of Modern Monetary Theory. “If Washington had done just $1trln in fiscal stimulus like Obama did in 2009 rather than the $3trln they’ve already approved, we’d be overwhelmed by civil unrest,” he added, expecting another $2trln this year, followed by another $2trln in 2021 infrastructure. In recent years, central bankers called on politicians to e

Hope all goes well… “Will he live or will he die?” barked Biggie Too in baritone. “We going to get a stimulus or won’t we?” bellowed the Chief Global Strategist from one of Wall Street’s too-big-to-fail affairs. “Will he win or will he lose? Is he going quiet or they gonna drag him out?” And Biggie was just warming up, closing his eyes, head swaying in a slow Zoom groove. “We don’t get something pre-election, then we

Hope all goes well… “Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!” tweeted the president. Of Trump’s 56,600 tweets, this one drew his bitterly polarized audience together unlike any other, albeit for wildly opposing reasons. The President’s post received 1.8mm “Likes,” which was nearly 1mm more than his second mo

A“We constantly do exercises,” said Sea Dog. “They are our biggest show of force,” he explained. “When the Chinese act up, we quickly do an exercise close to Taiwan, it never hurts to remind people we can reach out and touch you.” Anywhere, everywhere, anytime. “We have contingency plans for everything.” Ready to go. “Certain events come up on the fly, unexpectedly, a President gets sick, a multitude of possibilities

Who is John Galt? Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged atop that question. At twenty-five-years-old, it infected me. Powerful ideas do. Her philosophical model, Objectivism, helped explain the world’s workings. At least for a time. I was predisposed to fall for her model. Rugged individualism, laissez-faire capitalism, and an abhorrence for state power left me longing to live in Galt’s Gulch, her mythical libertarian town,

Hope all goes well… “It’s really interesting – they have us do something that seems pointless for a few days,” wrote Jackson, my oldest. “Then they explain the importance of it,” he added. “For example, we’re required to not smile or make any facial expressions whatsoever.” Even with a Marine screaming in your face. “We’re being taught to maintain composure in situations where we think we can’t, because to be a

Hope all goes well… “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed,” whispered Ruth Bader Ginsburg to her granddaughter. With this closing statement, the extraordinary Supreme Court Justice left a deeply divided nation to litigate her final case. Now the political games really begin. As prognosticators scrambled to recalculate their odds given this September surprise, betting

A“Modern Monetary Theory is Pandora’s Box,” lamented Lithium, Handsfree on Highway 1. “It’s not that MMT is wrong, in fact it’s right in terms of describing how money works in a fiat system,” he said, banking a turn, the Pacific shimmering to the left, Malibu’s cliffs on the right. “But I’m afraid we’ll soon discover that compared to what we’re now unleashing, we were better off engaged in endless arguments between K

AToday’s Fed impotence is a rare occurrence in nature, decades in the making. And like everything on this magnificent planet, spinning in space, it has manifested within an infinitely complex web of relationships that we can sometimes glimpse, grasp, but are more often woven in ways impossible to unravel, difficult to even observe, let along comprehend. So here we are, interest rates at zero, central bank balance she