Inflation

July 11, 2022

Good morning!

Happy Feast of Benedict of Nursia — the last guy on earth who might have made any sense out of all of it.

Are you happy?

It’s an important question — and one which could take you (frighteningly?) several layers deep.

Do not be afraid to explore the answer(s).

Chicken or the Egg? Is happiness an outcome — or an input?

What is it about July and revolutions?

Bastille Day is later this week — and we just had July 4 and July 1…

Then add Algeria, The Bahamas, Belarus, Colombia, Rwanda, Egypt, Slovakia…

My Dad kept a 1940s-era Plymouth parked in the yard but I don’t recall ever riding in it; I remember more using its long, smooth roof and hood as a slide.
- Our go-to vehicle was a 1947 Dodge pickup.
- It apparently met all of our needs for 20-years of survival on the farm; daily it hauled milk and eggs to town — and brought a few groceries back.
- Whatever remained of it was among the assorted broken-down tools at our auction.
- On rare occasions, five or six or seven of us would pile into the tiny cab for a 3-mile trip to town — usually for church.
- That pickup, and millions of vehicles like it, operated very simply — and from a very young age you learned how to maintain it and repair it.
- Points, condenser, spark plugs, oil filter, anti freeze (summer was just water; it wasn’t called coolant).
- Occasionally a generator, water pump, or battery needed attention — maybe even the exotic and rarely considered coil, that was a big deal.
- If you were an expert mechanic you might tinker with the carburetor, but only at your peril.
How and why in the world is Hank Kissinger still around — and writing yet another award-winning book?
- Ninety-nine years old and he gives us: Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy, Penguin, 2022)
- “The task of the leader is to get his (her) people from where they are to where they have not been.” (Kissinger, 2022)
  - (Apparently Henry has not yet learned how to be gender-inclusive.)
Tom Cruise is 60, but is he really?
- You should see him driving an airplane; wow! Not even the G forces contort his baby face.
- Most of us can’t steer a bicycle as well as he maneuvers an F-18 fighter jet.
- Go see it! Top Gun Maverick… in theatres now.
- Take a break, sit back, hold on to the edge of your seat.

The latest round of inflation, logistics, and labor shortages are reminiscent of intersecting tsunamis
- According to the best data we have, Eastern Europe is where things are worst, ~13% on average in those countries (Russian influence?).
- McKinsey has the one year over last year number at about 7.5% for the United States.
- Japan has the lowest inflation at about 2% (therefore the most stable, at least before Abe’s death?!)
- China, Switzerland, and Saudi Arabia luxuriate in the penumbra of the Rising Sun.
- BTW, 372,000 jobs added to the U.S. economy last month.
- Figure out all of this and get yourself a Nobel; everyone is eligible.
Texas is doing something right — or wrong, who knows?!
- Office occupancy* levels in all of the major Texas cities exceed the national average and are nudging above fifty percent (50%).
- You may explore more of the data, but the California Bay Area is now approaching thirty percent (30%). (Ming Li)
- No one knows whether these data portend good or bad news, but they give us different news from what had been the pre-plague norm.
  - *meaning offices filled with humans doing work.

Do we still believe this?

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning,

and her name Mother of Exiles.

From her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome;

her mild eyes command the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,

“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!”

cries she with silent lips.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.