Never use the word “nugatory.”
Another 6.6 Million People File for Unemployment Benefits and the S&P 500 Is Up 2%: This Is Totally Normal
It’s Thursday — the day the Labor Department releases unemployment data. Since last week, another 6.6 million Americans have filed initial claims seeking unemployment benefits, bringing the total of new claims to about 16.8 million over the past three weeks.
Naturally, the S&P 500 is up almost 2% as I write this. Why is the market continuing to move up?
Aphorism No. 138
Few are innocent, but almost everyone is not guilty.
“The Ones Who Love Us Never Really Leave Us”: Making Sense of Mortality
As of Wednesday, Apr. 8, we have hit 12,000 coronavirus deaths in the United States. And there’s an unfortunately decent chance that we will have 120,000-plus deaths from the virus this year.
The odds are high that most people in the country will know someone who succumbed to the virus by the time it has run its course. Now seems like the season for contemplating mortality and thinking specifically about the best way to remember those who one day will no longer be with us.
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Aphorism No. 137
Walk through the maze if you want to get lost. Walk around the maze if you want to get to the other side.
Is Now the Time to Get Back in the Stock Market?
Yesterday, the S&P 500 jumped up 7.03%. Meanwhile, the United States coronavirus death toll has passed 10,000 and egg prices have tripled since last month (per J.R. Whalen of the Minute Briefing podcast).
Today, as I write this on the morning of April 7, S&P futures are up almost another 3%.
What’s going on here?
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Aphorism No. 136
The future is like the past, except with more potential for destruction.
Rewatching Battlestar Galactica During the Coronavirus Crisis
Depending on my mood, the rebooted Battlestar Galactica series (2003-09) is in my personal all-time top five. And right now, there’s just something about a small group of survivors stuck inside spaceships for an indefinite period of time that resonates with me.
But it’s not for everyone. Some people don’t like science fiction. It’s too unrealistic for them. And that’s fair. Thinking about Battlestar now, I am struck by one massively unrealistic aspect of the show — but it has nothing to do with science fiction.
It has to do with the supply chain.
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Aphorism No. 135
Narratives are often more convincing than numbers.
Q&A (Apr. 5): Five Movies That Are Better Than the Books
From Cliff Williams: Five movies that were better than the books?
Freedman’s Answer: Here are the five that pop into my head first — Forrest Gump, Mary Poppins, Princess Bride, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask, and Jaws.
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