john maddente | midwestern clarity

B elow is a humble cocktail napkin from a recent flight.  The inscription -- which I failed to notice at first -- has a richer significance.  John Maddente photo After I buckled up, a man next to me begin to banter with our flight attendant who obviously loved her work (I'll call her Laura).  Although he gave me permission to identify him for this post, I recall only his last name -- Weingarten.  Back to the flight... Laura and Mr. Weingarten appeared to know one another rather well.  When Laura left to serve other passengers, Mr. Weingarten pointed out that both of our napkins contained this friendly, hand-written, greeting and that she had produced one for him on a previous flight.  What I learned next was my inspiration for this post. Mr. Weingarten explained that on a previous flight, two other flight attendants took notice of Laura's gracious attitude toward her c...

R estaurants matter!  Since childhood, I’ve had an almost religious attraction to restaurants serving tasty Chinese food, Italian food, steaks, etc.   Now in my late 50s I’m speaking out against a form of dining that started to proliferate across the U.S. about 10 years ago.... a restaurant concept called, “ small plates ”.   It’s not the portion size that bothers me.  OK, part of the problem is size-related, but one can obviously consume as many little bites as one wishes and leave satisfied.   Nor is the problem entirely due to flavors (I've enjoyed tapas and other tiny treats served at many small plate eateries).  The problem is the convoluted experience of the small plate "dinner".  Dinner in this case is a misnomer.  It's more like playing gastronomic chess and I don't like it.  Here's what happens at a typical small plate experience.... Small plates photo -- Wikipedia After eyeing a group of baby plates spewed across a table ...

W arren Buffet and Carl Icahn are famous investors but fewer people may know Ray Dalio.  Mr. Dalio founded an investment firm 40 years ago called Bridgewater Associates.  With $160 billion under management, Bridgewater runs one of the largest hedge funds in the world. Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio, Bridgewater website I recently discovered (among 3 million other people) a thirty minute YouTube video that Mr. Dalio produced to explain fundamentals of what he calls  the economic machine .  This video, which he narrates has been translated into several languages and viewed over 3,200,000 times.  The content begins slowly with basic concepts but progresses to explain the primary levers that policy-makers use to manage and stimulate the economy.  You can find it here .   There are numerous lessons cleverly and clearly explained here.  Example: I hadn't appreciated why economists seem obsessed with Wage Growth until I watched this simp...