Newmark's Door

I was sad to see the Tide lose, but this still made me laugh. (2 minute video.)

A nice story. Go Pats.

Made me laugh.

Awwww . . . .

Well, not all of us . . . but, hey, where's federal regulation when you need it??

The top five: 1) Trader Joe’s, 2) Costco Wholesale, 3) Amazon, 4) H-E-B, 5) Wegmans Food Markets.

O.K.

"New technology promises to tell us everything about the food we eat."

Good. I missed my romaine.

That was one heck of a tsunami. Glad I missed it.

Sabine Hossenfelder:

So we have AI fragility plus the trend of increasingly complex hard- and software to become unique. Now extrapolate this some decades into the future. We will have a few large companies, governments, and maybe some billionaires who will be able to afford their own AI. Those AIs will be delicate and need constant attention by a crew of dedicated humans. 

The reporter briefly reviews 15.

Yes. Sad as I am to say it, a ticket of Mrs. O and Oprah--the Vice-Presidency isn't a real job a great majority of the time, so I'm sure an arrangement could be made for her to keep doing what's she's doing--would be real difficult to beat.

Related: "Is Michelle Obama Plotting to Take the White House in 2020?"

Jonah Goldberg in praise of dogs.

Related: "Charles Schulz was right: Happiness is a warm puppy".

"Ever wondered what industries employ the youngest and oldest people?"

The youngest, by a fair margin, surprised me. The oldest did not.

This slams the Washington Post pretty hard. The deplorables might well not understand, but surely we expect better from the WaPo.

Guess what? Once again, "easy money" isn't.

You can sure say that again.

Since I'm a value investor I hope this proves true.

Slowly, very reluctantly, and maybe because of potentially more trouble with the SEC.

From the Hollywood Reporter:

With swelling transient encampments abutting seven-figure homes, the beachside enclave has emerged as a flashpoint for the inequality shaping Los Angeles — and a real-world test case for the liberal ideology of the area’s showbiz residents.

This appears online at Mother Jones(!)--no, make that "!!" It's a review of a recent book by Alex Berenson, former investigative reporter for the New York Times(!), Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence. The review summarizes what Berenson found: a lot of research about marijuana's possible harm that was ". . . hardly Reagan-esque, drug warrior hysteria."

But what about reverse causality--some people with mental health issues use marijuana to self-medicate? There is research that at least purports to address that and it still concludes there is evidence of serious health risk.

But what about all the high school and college kids who smoked pot in the '60s and '70s seemingly without ill effects except for the now cliché hunger for munchies and a bit of sleepiness? To me, the most arresting paragraph of the piece is this:

Before talking to Berenson, I didn’t realize it was possible to smoke your way to the ER. I smoked plenty of weed in high school and so did all my friends, and none of us jumped off a balcony or killed anyone—we could barely get off the couch. But the marijuana sold today is not what we smoked, which at 1 percent to 2 percent THC was the equivalent of smoking oregano. Today’s weed is insanely more potent, as are products like “wax” and “shatter”—forms of butane hash oil designed to be vaped or dabbed that come pretty close to 100 percent THC. And these high-potency products usually contain very little CBD oil, the ingredient in cannabis that’s supposed to account for many of its supposed health benefits.

Very much related: another review of Berenson's book by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker (!!!): "Is Marijuana As Safe As We Think?" (Summary: maybe not, but a whole lot more research should be done.)

(Links via Powerline.)

As I write, the reviews of the book on Amazon are 60% five-star and 37% one-star. I read all the one-star reviews and except for two they are hundreds of miles away from being serious attempts to refute the book's argument. The two semi-serious reviews both accuse the author of cherry-picking the research while providing absolutely zero references to support that accusation. 

Once again Arnold Kling absolutely nails it:

For what it’s worth, I would like to see the Republicans adopt a more moderate tone and a more conservative agenda. Prominent in a more conservative agenda would be a commitment to curb present and future deficits.

"Sorry, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Paul Krugman."

See also "Krugman on optimal taxes" and "Paul Krugman’s Political Groundhog Day".

Related: "For Tax Purposes, ‘the Rich’ Are People Who Earn More Than You Do" and "The Middle Class, Not ‘the Rich,’ Is Where the Money Lies".

It's a start.

If you want detailed tracking see "Tracking deregulation in the Trump era".

More than a year old, but still very, very relevant. Alan Reynolds dissect the growing demand for more--much more--antitrust.

Economics that even Liberals can love:

It soon became clear to the Booth team that the main barrier to improving Second Harvest’s distribution system wasn’t devising an efficient market. The bigger challenge was making it seem fair to skeptics like Arnold. The only way the invisible hand was going to work its magic for Second Harvest was if Arnold could see what was in it for him and for the people his charity served.