Miscellaneous thoughts about miscellaneous matters
I was thinking of writing a post on the stubbornness of pseudo-facts, but then I went to a store to buy some orange juice. I lightened the collection of coins that were weighing down my pocket, and the cashier commented on my use of coins. We discussed that fact that younger people often use plastic for anything and everything, ignoring the fact that there are processing fees for both credit and debit cards. While it is foolish for people to collect change and use plastic for small retail purchases, ...
I don't often think about inflation, but it is present whenever I buy anything, and it is not as benign as some would have us think. There are many measures of inflation, but I like to use a few things to show the change in proportion. You may not remember it, but in 1820 an ounce of gold was worth $20. That same ounce of gold would have sold for $35 in the 1960'a. But that isn't comparable, because the market for gold was highly regulated. Another comparison is in the cost of labor ...
I recently commented using the old saw "Time is Money", and the person I was speaking to disagreed. While the two are not identical, they have equivalency; one can be converted to the other as a general matter. "The phrase was coined by Benjamin Franklin in his Advice to a Young Tradesman (1748): Remember that time is money. He that idly loses five shillings' worth of time loses five shillings, and might as prudently throw five shillings into the sea." https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-et...-Time-is-Money ...
The war in the Mid East has taken some strange turns. What has gone on in Syria is strange and largely inexplicable, but the confusion there has led to much greater chaos elsewhere. The elected government lost the support of a significant part of the military, and a civil war started or heated up anyway. There had been small revolts in various parts of the country, but that was too small to worry about, and most of the units disbanded at the end of a battle and they returned to their homes. But ...