A post about nothing

If Seinfeld became a hit TV program as a show about "nothing," then this post is a nod to that empty theme of everyday life. Here are two items about nothing in particular...

By George Webb Corporation - http://www.georgewebb.com

1. For three consecutive mornings, I've happily eaten breakfast at George Webb, a Wisconsin chain of some 30+ counter and booth style restaurants which first opened for business in 1948. I've been enjoying them -- and particularly their cheese hash browns -- since the Seventies. However, I'm ordering their free water as my beverage for the foreseeable future. I recognize the ill effects of that silent thief we call inflation, but $3.30 for their small size glass of institutional orange juice? Ridiculous.

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2. I'm guessing few of my seven readers are familiar with Luckbox magazine. Its stated focus on "Life, Money, Probability" is geared toward Traders and other professional investors. I do not belong to that group, but a copy of this magazine at an airport lounge with snappy graphics and offbeat topics, caused me to subscribe.

The latest issue has an interesting article on the high stakes fight to preserve, or slowly kill, AM radio. Spoiler alert: The piece reminds readers that AM radio remains relevant to 82 million American listeners and also government officials that rely upon it as a medium for public emergency alerts. What's more, AM radio defenders in Congress are remarkably bipartisan.

Today I close with a friendly jab at the Luckbox editor of this article. Dear Madam or Sir, Re: the copy under "Night Radio" -- I believe your columnist intended to cite the laws of physics not "psychics". Your oversight reminded me of a M*A*S*H episode when Col. Potter exclaims, "We order rectal thermometers, we get spark plugs. Both useful articles, but hardly interchangeable."

Blessed with friends on the other side

Wikipedia image This post contains excerpts from an April 10 e-mail response to a dear friend of mine (edited for emphasis and anonymity). “Dear Mortimer, I’ll say hello to the guys for you and I’ll be thinking about you this evening. As for politics, yes, we tend to gravitate toward sources that share our views. However, I also read the New York Times Op-ed pages and watch MSNBC (as hard as those tasks are for me). I suppose you watch Fox on occasion and I know you read the WSJ – so good for both of us. We try. The state-sponsored education you cite that we both benefited from, came largely from our parents' sweat equity – translated into tax dollars – that funded the University of Wisconsin system. True, my friend. But, I'm not arguing for zero taxation, or zero government involvement in our lives. When Progressives argue in favor of entitlement programs, they'll sometimes cite Social Security (under-...

Because it's not theirs to change

Freepik image This week there was controversy stemming from a publisher's decision to edit versions of children's stories written by the late Roald Dahl . The edits, whether inspired by Netflix (who according to Forbes purchased the rights to Dahl's work) or the publisher Puffin Books , sparked a public outcry and PR nightmare. The publisher curated an alternative version to the original work from Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, (a story later adapted to make the film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory ), ostensibly to remove insensitive terms. There are several reasons why this ill-conceived, if well-intentioned attempt at inclusiveness -- a term becoming increasingly elastic -- failed miserably. I'm not discussing the evils of censorship today. Altering original art work to appeal to others is ill advised for another reason.....it's not theirs to change (and doing so can backfire). One ...

Economics 101 for the rest of us

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...

john maddente | midwestern clarity

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