I know it’s hard for many of my friends to appreciate the severity of the tension and helplessness that many African Americans feel towards law enforcement. To Americans of European descent, especially those in the upper socio-economic classes, the fear and antagonism directed towards a police force that is, by and large, hard-working and committed…
I’m once again in a bit of a contemplative mood thanks to a thoughtful coffee discussion with a good friend this morning. I’m more convinced than ever that, while it’s been the most tragic event of our lifetimes, we’ll exit this epidemic in a dramatically better place than we entered it. First and foremost, we…
I’ve long preferred real estate over financial assets. The 2008 crisis taught me a lot of lessons about real estate investing. Most of them were expensive. But, hey, education is worth paying for. However, unlike that last financial crisis over a decade ago, the current COVID crisis doesn’t have at its core a connection to…
In order to begin formulating plans for a hopeful return to normalcy, I realized it was important for me to understand how all of the measures we’ve all become accustomed to discussing related to one another: physical distancing, PPE, antibody testing, herd immunity, and so on. This short video is my attempt at explaining all of these concepts to myself as a layperson. Think of it as Epidemiology for Dummies :-).
Over the coming month, one topic will overshadow Coronavirus/COVID-19: reopening the economy. Because I consider this much more than a “reopening” – beyond the bounds of any state or country, and much broader in scope than the economy – I prefer to use the phrase “rebooting the world.”
This is meant as an economic, non-political post reflecting on my thoughts as to the interplay between the public and private sectors. As early as four decades ago, my father, a political scientist and economist (with a PhD in each discipline), used to describe to me how society would eventually find a healthy balance between…
How often has the majority been wrong? Let’s look at what the majority of people accepted ~50, ~100, and ~150 years ago that now sound staggeringly shameful. It wasn’t much beyond 50 years ago that a majority still believed it was OK to discriminate against people based on their race, religion, or country of origin…
Photo by Chaz McGregor Dear 11-year-old self: For as long as I can remember, I’ve suffered an emotional weakness: I’ve always had an overwhelming sense of guilt at my inability to remove pain and suffering from the world around me. I feel bad for animals… I can’t stand being in the meat section of the grocery…
After giving a talk recently, I was inspired to capture 7 principles that are, for all intents and purposes, facts about our society today. What’s more, they’re facts we tend to forget in our day-to-day lives as we judge others and evaluate our world. ____________________ 1. The elderly aren’t a group; they are we. ____________________…
Since the inception of social media, it’s been my philosophy to maintain political and ideological neutrality; I don’t plan on changing that today. However, this election has taught me a number of personal lessons about our socioeconomic conditions that belie any particular ideology: 1. There are a lot of disenfranchised people in this country, most…
