Juggling Dynamite

Adoration and confidence in central banks, finance and politicians as they enabled and rode the debt bubble up was misplaced and undeserved.  Now buried under the debt weight of our past consumption, rock bottom rates and yields are serving to decrease rather than increase demand.

Monetary planners are at a loss, because they only ever had the one lever–short-term policy rates– and it’s now harming not helping growth.  Moreover, the majority seems to be aware of that now, and confidence is central planners is in secular decline.  Jon Hilsenrath of the Wall Street Journal lays out the demise of Fed-faith today in Years of Fed missteps have fueled disillusion with the economy and Washington.

Since Hilsenrath has, since at least Bernanke days, been considered the Fed’s press mouthpiece, one wonders if this article marks the dawn of a new era:  one where the Fed says they have done all they can and passes the stimulus stick back to governments and business.

What is the blockchain? If you don’t know, you should; if you do, chances are you still need some clarification on how it actually works. Don Tapscott is here to help, demystifying this world-changing, trust-building technology which, he says, represents nothing less than the second generation of the internet and holds the potential to transform money, business, government and society. Here is a direct video link.

The most highly valued realty in the world is built along continental coasts, and climate change will continue to devalue and erode it;  believe it or not.

The Science Guy himself Bill Nye was brought in to CNN’s New Day this morning to examine some of the devastating effects of the flooding in Louisiana that has left over 60,000 homes badly damaged.  Here is a direct video link.

Note the last minute of Ney’s comments are the most useful in terms of initiatives available to address these issues “if we just decided to do it, right now.” He also points out: “At CNN, you have essentially a climate change denier meteorologist, and knock yourselves out, but this is a big problem and it’s not going to go away.”

The anchor offers the usual head in sand response saying “a bigger conversation for another day…”  Off to a word from the sponsors!

No surprise there, having accepted an estimated $73,294,380 in contributions from fossil fuel companies, there are 182 climate deniers in the 114th Congress in 2016–144 in the House and 38 in the Senate. According to the U.S. Census, that means 202,803,591 people are represented by a climate denier in Congress. See the details here:  Most Americans disagree with their congressional representatives on climate change.